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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22845415">Last Chance Power Drive</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/waterfallliam/pseuds/waterfallliam'>waterfallliam</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Stargate Atlantis</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe, Canon-Typical Violence, Car Chases, Knight and Day AU, M/M, Truth Serum, unrealistic hacking</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 08:20:50</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>21,833</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22845415</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/waterfallliam/pseuds/waterfallliam</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Rodney means to say something vague and cool, or perhaps just less embarrassing than what does come out, which is, “I kissed him on an airplane and now the government won’t stop trying to kill me.”</i><br/>A Knight and Day AU.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Rodney McKay/John Sheppard</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>84</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Romancing McShep 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Last Chance Power Drive</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is my fic for the Romancing McShep Fest 2020. I saw the prompt for a Knight and Day AU and knew I had to write it. What started out as something short and silly became something longer and somewhat silly. Thanks to <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThirdRateDuelist/pseuds/ThirdRateDuelist">ThirdRateDuelist</a> and <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/LordAxxington/pseuds/LordAxxington">LordAxxington</a> for proofreading. Title is from Bruce Springsteen's <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3t9SfrfDZM">Born to Run</a>. I hope you enjoy!<br/>Edit: You do not need to know anything about the movie to understand this fic, but if you've seen it some things will be familiar :)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Rodney is running late. Of course, his flight is in an hour and there aren’t any significant queues: it’s perfectly feasible he can make it to his gate and still have to wait for a solid half hour before they let him on. But just because it’s the reasonable and most likely course of events doesn’t mean it’s going to happen.</p><p>He drags his luggage along behind him, clothes and toiletries and all sorts of random equipment he couldn’t just leave in the lab for the weekend crammed into the confines of a suitcase that qualifies for hand luggage. Like he’s going to risk the equipment he’s built himself getting lost to baggage claim. It’s just within the prescribed weight limit, he’s triple checked.</p><p>Making sure his switch to an earlier flight has gone through, he collects his ticket from the desk. He’d thought he’d have to take the latest flight after putting in a full day’s work, but Carter had seemed happy, eager even, to give him a half day off on top of his paid vacation days. Maybe he has been letting them stack up too much.</p><p>He supposes if things go well with Jeannie he might have more of a reason to use them. The letter and invitation had been a surprise after years of radio silence, but not an unwelcome one. Writing an email in reply had been awkward at best, but worth it. It's madness, flying back to Canada on such short notice. They’d offered to put him up with them, but the hotel had seemed a safer choice, especially if he wants to squeeze some work in before the wedding—unless they’ve unofficially assigned him to be Madison’s sitter.</p><p>He breezes past the desks to check in luggage, then the stores aimed at the people who have already blissfully reached their destinations. There's a winding evasion of an elderly couple, his suitcase nearly flipping onto its front, but he manages to haul it onto the escalator, and oh, security is next, that'll be fun with his custom equipment. Making sure not to look like an idiot he steps off in one fluid motion, adjusting his suitcase and—</p><p>He's crashing straight into someone, ticket and brochure booklet and who knows what they gave him scattering to the ground. Smooth.</p><p>"Oh, sorry." The words spill out as automatically as he starts picking them up. He doesn't have time for this. The man he’s crashed into is holding a phone at hip height. "Actually, you must have not been looking where you were going either."</p><p>Phone slipped into the front jean pocket, a set of hands joins his in picking up the papers, extracting a magazine about sports cars that definitely isn't Rodney’s from the pile. They're nice hands, Rodney thinks, largish but still elegant looking, tanned from long exposure to the sun.</p><p>"Yeah, well, happens to everyone sometime." The voice belonging to those hands is rich but slightly nasal, laid back but not unkind. Maybe it's the fact that he's been running on 4 hours of sleep per night for the past week, or he's just met his soulmate, but it's the sexiest thing he's heard in a long time. “You look but you don’t see.”</p><p>"Of course." Rodney stands, and oh, the face belonging to those hands is definitely attractive. Messy hair flops over a longish and slightly wonky nose, green eyes crinkling with good humour. "Still. I wasn’t looking, it’s so annoying when other people do that. I didn't catch you with my suitcase, did I?"</p><p>"Nah. And my magazine's alright too." The half smile slowly stretching across his face just confirms it: this guy is hot. A bit weird, but hot.</p><p>"You uh, you have toothpaste," Hot Guy says, pointing at the lower half of his face. For a second Rodney thinks he’s going to keep reaching until he touches him, but Hot Guy turns away, leaving Rodney standing in the middle of the airport, spluttering. He had been in a rush, not wanting to smell of the somewhat garlicky early lunch he’d shoveled down at the cafeteria before driving to the airport, but—</p><p>He feels his jaw, ignoring the slight rasp of stubble. It definitely feels like caked toothpaste. Licking his thumb, he rubs it off. Just his luck.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>“And this is?” The man at security asks, holding up a folded up contraption.</p><p>Rodney sighs and a clips his words. “Telescope. I’m an astrophysicist. I work for NASA.”</p><p>“This?” The guard looks unimpressed.</p><p>“Laptop!”</p><p>He huffs, looks around. The woman in the next aisle has an aggrieved expression on her face as the guard opposite her holds up a hairdryer. He can relate.</p><p>Then, looking behind him, he spots Hot Guy. He’s smiling at his own guard, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. Hands on hips, Rodney bets he’s all generous charm, not pointing out humiliating details about the guard’s appearance and then leaving.</p><p>Hot Guy catches Rodney’s eye just as his security guard pipes up again. “And what’s this?”</p><p>Reluctantly, he turns around. “Electric razor. You know, for shaving.” He mimes the action, willing the universe to free him from this ordeal so he can begin his next seven hour long flight shaped one.</p><p>When he looks back, Hot Guy’s gone.</p><p>“That’ll be all.” The guard lets him carefully repack his suitcase, minus a bottle of deadly dangerous hand cream and a pair of tweezers, fingers drumming on his totally necessary baton all the while.</p><p>Rodney smiles as he walks away. Hot Guy had been looking back at him, toothpaste and all.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>An overpriced tube of hand cream later, he’s on track to his gate with plenty of time. Everything is back to going smoothly until he bumps into another person, suitcase falling over and tube falling to the ground. Luckily nothing squirts out.</p><p>“We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” says a familiar voice—it’s Hot Guy again. If Rodney didn’t know the underlying physical laws of the universe like the back of his hand, he’d be tempted to reach for words like fate to describe them bumping into each other again. Instead, he firmly chalks it up as a lucky coincidence.</p><p>“I’m not normally this prone to bumping into people,” Rodney says, feeling nervous as he picks up the hand cream. Hot Guy has his suitcase standing ready and waiting for him by the time he’s finished. Thoughtful and efficient. What are the chances a guy like this could still be single and not have some kind of hideous character flaw hiding beneath his handsome surface? There isn’t a ring on his finger, at least.</p><p>Hot Guy’s smiling again, the one that reaches his eyes: the real one. “You know just how to make a guy feel special.”</p><p>“Sorry about,” he gestures between them vaguely, “this again.”</p><p>Hot Guy leaves just as enigmatically as the last time, no hand luggage in sight, just the leather jacket on his back and shades tucked into the V of his unbuttoned shirt.</p><p>It’s a good look on him, the messy shirt and comfy looking jeans, perfectly casual but simultaneously off the charts alluring. Then again, he could probably pull all sorts of things off. It’s been a while since Rodney’s short-sleeve over long-sleeve combo has made him feel especially geeky, but that comes from shutting himself away in a government lab to work with equally geeky scientists for the better part of a year.</p><p>Sighing, he walks the last stretch to his gate. He extracts his ticket from between the glossy brochure pages and hands it over.</p><p>“I’m sorry sir, we’re overbooked. The desk made a mistake letting you book an earlier flight,” the stewardess in front of him says, blocking his way into the retractable footpath leading to the plane.</p><p>“What do you mean? I have to get to my sister’s wedding! It’s tomorrow!”</p><p>The woman’s expression softens, but her voice remains firm. “I’m afraid we’re overbooked. You can catch your original flight and still get there by tomorrow.”</p><p>“No, you don’t understand. I’ve barely spoken to her in four years. We used to do everything together. I have to be there for this.” How can he wrap up years of fraught worries and swallowing words he can’t force past his teeth into an understandable explanation for this woman?</p><p>“I’m sorry, you’ll make it in time on the next flight.” She looks away. He supposes it’s not in her power to change things anyway. “Next, please.”</p><p>Someone else hands a ticket to her. Rodney considers whether it’s even worth making a complaint or if he should skip to wallowing, just to make sure he gets that out of the way before arriving in Ottawa.</p><p>“Alright Mr… Sheppard. Just this way.” She steps aside.</p><p>Hot Guy—no, <em>Sheppard</em>—turns to face Rodney as he passes, being allowed on the plane when he had been rejected. “Sometimes things happen for a reason.”</p><p>What the actual fuck is that supposed to mean?</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Rodney sits on one of the surprisingly comfortable couches, stares out at the tarmac. If the weather would only thematically reflect his mood right now, it’d be raining. Instead the evening sun shines with a bitter indifference, reminding him that Ottawa is probably ankle deep in snow right now.</p><p>He texts Jeannie, telling her not to wait up for him: he’ll come by in the morning as originally planned and check into his hotel tonight. Stashing his phone deep into his suitcase, he considers the merits of circling back around to the duty-free shops for a snack. There was also a burger joint that looked inviting; he could get a table and work if it isn’t too noisy.</p><p>“Sir?” The woman from the gate walks towards him with an apologetic smile before he’s decided. “There was an error in our system, you’re free to board this flight if you still want to.”</p><p>“I am? Oh that’s brilliant.”</p><p>She seems relieved he’s not going to kick up more of a fuss. And why should he, it’s not like she’s been ignoring lab safety or wasting everyone’s time. The computer tech however, he’d be fair game.</p><p>When he reaches the end of the retractable walkway he’s surprised to find the plane mostly empty. “That must have been one technical error,” he says, but the stewardess is already gone. Instead, he finds himself standing a few feet away from Hot G—from Sheppard.</p><p>“That’s one thing to call it,” Sheppard answers after a few seconds and a searching look. Rodney hadn’t meant to strike up a conversation with him, but since it isn’t actually his fault that Rodney had almost missed this flight, he decides to go for it, weird comment and all.</p><p>He picks the aisle seat across from Sheppard’s. “It isn’t really my sister’s wedding tomorrow, you know. It’s this weekend. But I do need to be there tomorrow. I haven’t met her fiancé and we need to go over all the details for music choices, best man speeches, she’s trying on dresses and—I. I need to meet my niece, we’re giving Jeannie away together. She’s barely a year old!” Why it had taken them so long to get hitched he doesn’t know, but he’s grateful for it, because it means he gets to be there.</p><p>“That sounds like it could get complicated,” Sheppard points out astutely.</p><p>“You’re telling me! At least she’ll probably be old enough to be a ring bearer on her own if—when—if,” and of course he’s gabbing now, great. Having the full intensity of Sheppard’s gaze fixed on him is overloading the already overworked and overtired routes of his brain. “If I ever get married.”</p><p>Sheppard raises an eyebrow at him.</p><p>“Drinks, sirs?” A steward appears in the aisle.</p><p>“A Mojito,” Rodney names the first drink that comes to mind. “Without lime!” Too many cocktails contain some kind of deadly citrus juice component.</p><p>“There’s no lime on board,” the steward reassures. Thank goodness.</p><p>Sheppard gives Rodney another amused glance before speaking. “Same for me.”</p><p>Belatedly he realises he’s spoken all of ten sentences to this guy and he’s already mentioning marriage. Real smooth. He manages to keep his mouth shut all through the safety procedures and lift off.</p><p>“I like the idea of committing to another person, but it would have to be the right person,” Sheppard offers, somehow still willing to make conversation with him. This rarely, if ever, happens. All he can read on Sheppard’s face is amusement, there’s no evidence of frustration or hostile questioning of his sanity. Maybe he just has a really good poker face, but that doesn’t explain why he’s putting up with Rodney. A current of hope runs through him. He’s attracted to Sheppard, and so far hasn’t done anything to put him off.</p><p>“I’d like that, to someday share my life with someone,” Rodney says, finding his thoughts on the subject strangely vague and hard to grasp. Sure, he knows all sorts of details, like what he likes during sex or that their knives in the kitchen would need to be stored in a cupboard—but the broader strokes of it are unknowns.</p><p>“Someday,” Sheppard echoes.</p><p>“Someday I’ll be married and win a Nobel prize.”</p><p>“For what?”</p><p>Rodney frowns at him. “For the thing most worth getting one, physics, duh. I’m a world renowned astrophysicist.”</p><p>“Alright, Doctor…” Sheppard looks at him expectantly.</p><p>“McKay, Doctor M. Rodney McKay.”</p><p>“Em?” Sheppard asks.</p><p>“That top secret information will only be revealed on pain of death,” he jokes, but in all seriousness he thinks he could manage to keep it a secret right up until they’re—until he and his eventual, invented, fiancé—are signing the marriage certificate.</p><p>The look Sheppard fixes him with is odd, like he’s a vector Sheppard is trying to calculate. <em>Okay, this guy is hot but a bit weird,</em> Rodney thinks, <em>nothing I didn</em><em>’t know before.</em></p><p>Sheppard opens his mouth, on the verge of speaking, but the steward interrupts him.</p><p>“Your drinks.”</p><p>Rodney glares at him as he sets the glasses down.</p><p>After he’s gone, Sheppard raises his glass, the odd look from before vanishing like sunlight behind a cloud. “A toast.”</p><p>“To what?” The glass is cold and smooth beneath his sweating palm.</p><p>“To… someday,” Sheppard smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Might it actually happen.”</p><p>His fake charm unsettles Rodney. There’s something here he’s missed, like subtitles to the conversation telling him important facts he can’t read. But Sheppard smashes their glasses together, catching Rodney halfway through a move to set his glass down and ask some pointed and important questions.</p><p>The drink spills all over his lap.</p><p>“Fantastic,” Rodney moans, sighing anew when he sees that the little napkin the steward had placed under the glass is sodden as well, not that the tiny square of paper would have been able to help him with the embarrassing splash all over his jeans.</p><p>“Oh no, I’m sorry,” Sheppard says, but Rodney is too busy sinking into a personal pit of despair to pay much attention to him or his fake niceties. </p><p>Looking around, the steward is nowhere to be seen, and the sparse number of other passengers are conveniently self-involved. Grumbling, he stands to fish through his equipment to find his pyjama pants.</p><p>“I’ll just be a minute,” he huffs.</p><p>The small cubicle has a slider door, much more convenient than the inward opening stall doors modern design has stupidly adopted. There’s still not much space to change. After, he runs his jeans under the cold tap—there’ll be room on any of the empty seats to dry them. Packing spares would have meant no telescope, and to be fair at least it’s his flannels and not his Trekkie ones. These, at least, will only earn him a few laughs while leaving the airport.</p><p>“Okay Rodney,” he tells himself in the mirror. “Something is up with Sheppard but he’s hot, he seems to like you, and there’s still six hours before landing.”</p><p>He thinks of the office betting pool, of all the little jokes and snide remarks his colleagues make when they think he can’t hear, of the unofficial rankings in the break room where his picture permanently resides in the spot dedicated to biggest workaholic.</p><p>“I’m going to go out there and give it my best shot.” He sounds uncertain, but a stern nod later he’s bustling out of the door. He’s ready to flirt and figure out what the hell is going on.</p><p>He walks back in on Sheppard arranging a blanket over one of the other passengers—except, no. It’s the steward from before. Rodney picks up speed, asking, “Is everything okay?”</p><p>Sheppard looks up at him with wide eyes before a smirk slips into place. “He fainted. Forgot to eat earlier.”</p><p>“That seems odd. Are you sure?”</p><p>“He’ll be fine.”</p><p>“Shouldn’t we give him a sandwich or something?” He knows he would appreciate one if he woke up hungry.</p><p>Sheppard’s looking the other way, and Rodney snaps his fingers to get his attention again, saying, “I’m getting him a sandwich.”</p><p>Rodney heads towards the back of the plane, pausing to lay his damp jeans out to dry. At the back, he grabs a sandwich and notices that the drinks cart has been left unattended. He picks up the white rum and soda.</p><p>Sheppard’s not where he left him, which is confusing, but he can deal with that in a minute. Maybe he needed the toilet. He refills his own glass, goes to top up Sheppard’s, but notices it’s still full. Whatever. He stashes the bottles in the seat next to his—it’s a long flight, after all. He picks up his drink, but before he can take a sip to fortify him, Sheppard returns.</p><p>“McKay!” Sheppard, his grin crossing the line from wide to frenzied, approaches from the cockpit.</p><p>Rodney sets his glass down. “What were you doing?”</p><p>“Oh, just making sure we’re not going to crash. The pilots are both out cold.”</p><p>They’re—what? No, Sheppard must be joking. Another one of his weird Sheppardisms Rodney is quickly becoming acquainted with, surely. “They forget to eat breakfast, too, huh?”</p><p>Rodney starts to laugh, and Sheppard joins in, his green eyes suddenly looking intensely beautiful and intensely unsure. Because that’s what he is, beautiful, even in the half turned down lighting, a rumpled shirt and bags under his eyes. Even though half the things he says don’t make sense. Maybe it’s the sleep deprivation or the fact that he’s going to a wedding when he hasn’t gotten laid in a good couple of years, not even properly kissed anyone in more than that, or it’s just how Sheppard’s smile turns genuine just for him.</p><p>He steps forward and kisses him, hands automatically reaching for his waist. There’s solid heat under his palms as he presses Sheppard back against the side of the seat ever. He takes Sheppard’s top lip between his own, coaxing, then Sheppard’s kissing him back, Sheppard’s hands coming up to cup his head.</p><p>Sheppard pushes back against Rodney, kissing him with a recklessness that should be worrying, but just makes Rodney groan, melting like putty against him. His lips are slightly chapped, his stubble just long enough to burn uncomfortably, kissing just a bit fast for Rodney’s liking, but Rodney takes control, slowing the kiss, and suddenly those other things don’t matter quite so much.</p><p>Angling his head, Rodney deepens the kiss, feeling a smile as he clutches at Sheppard’s shirt. It’s fantastic, it’s toe-curling, it would just be that much better if they were sitting down. His lower back is starting to ache, and he knows that he needs a sit down and an aspirin. Not even the distracting way one of Sheppard’s hands moves to cup the nape of his neck can eliminate the slow beginnings of a bout of nerve pain. He opens his eyes, ready to slowly guide Sheppard to a seat and onto his lap, bony ass and all.</p><p>What he sees is the door to the cockpit swinging wide open, the two pilots slumped in their seats as if asleep.</p><p>He stops kissing Sheppard.</p><p>He considers the fact that Sheppard<em> had said </em>they were out cold.</p><p>What the fuck is going on?</p><p>Sheppard kisses the corner of his mouth but he doesn’t respond, mind gaining momentum down the slippery slope of panic he’s sliding down. “McKay?” Sheppard asks, rasping and unsure.</p><p>“The pilots… who’s flying the plane?”</p><p>Sheppard frowns. “The autopilot.”</p><p>“How are we going to land?” He feels his voice waver, going shrill as he gets close to screaming. As soon as the full reality of the situation hits him, he knows he will.</p><p>“I’ll land her, I’m a pilot.”</p><p>“You’re…” Rodney feels a little dizzy, and holds on tighter. Hands close around his shoulders, steadying him.</p><p>“Yeah, I’m a pilot. I can fly anything. The situation is under control.”</p><p>“Oh,” Rodney says as if this is a dream. Maybe it is. Maybe he fell asleep during take-off, why else would Sheppard let him just randomly make out with him? “Good to know.”</p><p>He turns and Sheppard lets go immediately, but hovers.</p><p>“Who are you?” Sheppard asks, amusement and concern mixing on his face.</p><p>Rodney sits down in the seat closest to him. It’s Sheppard’s. “I told you, I’m Rodney McKay. I should be asking you that!”</p><p>Sheppard’s drink is right in front of him on the little back-of-the-seat table. Now seems as good as any time to have it.</p><p>“No—wait—” Sheppard says, but it’s too late.</p><p>Rodney’s already gulped down half the glass. “You can have my one, it’s not a big deal,” he huffs.</p><p>“No, I think the steward drugged them.”</p><p>“He—what?” Rodney yelps, instincts roaring at him to jump up, to let out the panic and indignation in his chest, but he feels heavy, lethargic. The very blood in his veins is being weighed down, slowly dragging him into the seat, but he feels strangely unconcerned.</p><p>“I’ll make sure we land safely,” Sheppard says, his blurry face the last thing Rodney sees before the drug knocks him out completely.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Rodney wakes to lights blurring by and a gentle patter of rain against the passenger side window. It takes him a few moments to gather himself before turning to see who’s sitting in the driver’s seat. It’s Sheppard.</p><p>Sheppard, who had knocked out a plane not-entirely-full of people and then… then failed to save him from drinking a drugged cocktail. Wait—no—the splash, the first time. But why had Rodney’s drink been drugged? Who is this guy <em>really</em>?</p><p>Sheppard glances his way, eyes looking oddly vulnerable in the in and out of the streetlights along the motorway. “You’re awake.”</p><p>“No thanks to the steward.” That man is on his shit list, that’s for sure.</p><p>“No,” Sheppard agrees, voice neutral.</p><p>“We… we’re not on the plane anymore,” Rodney says intelligently.</p><p>Sheppard smiles. “I can fly anything.”</p><p>“So what was actually going on?”</p><p>Sheppard sighs. “You’re really just a civilian, aren’t you? Wrong place, wrong time.”</p><p>“Yeah.” Rodney swallows. “So what is this? Some kind of FBI thing? Army? National security?”</p><p>“Something like that. Look. We’ll be at your hotel in a few minutes, I can’t stop for long, they’ll find you faster if I do.”</p><p>“Find me?”</p><p>“The people on the plane, the people after me.” Sheppard pauses to make a couple of turns in quick succession, bathing the line of his exposed neck in purple then blue light. The streets passing them by do look vaguely familiar.</p><p>“They’ll find you no matter how careful I am. We’re connected now. They’ll tell you things about me, they’ll say I’m crazy, out of control, dangerous.”</p><p>Anyone who can knock out a plane full of people is dangerous. But out of control? Sheppard seems calm, had done the entire time, except when—oh. Except when Rodney had kissed him.</p><p>Rodney presses himself back into his seat, wishing he could sink into it.</p><p>Sheppard continues, craning his neck again as he drives, “Don’t get into any vehicles with them. Listen for words like safe, secure, stabilise—the more they repeat them, the more likely it is that they’re going to kill you.”</p><p>“Kill me?” Rodney reaches for the door, but it’s locked, and the seat belt cuts into his shoulder painfully at the sudden movement.</p><p>“Yes, McKay, they’re far more dangerous than me. Being on that plane has made you a target. I’m sorry.” Sheppard sounds sincere.</p><p>“Great,” Rodney sighs. He can see his hotel past the next intersection. Part of him still wants to kiss Sheppard and ask him how he got wrapped up in this mess of life and death. But the larger, rational part of him wants to run away screaming. He had just wanted to catch a flight to visit his somewhat estranged sister and attend her wedding.</p><p>Sheppard stops the car and gives him a searching look before leaning forward. For a moment Rodney thinks he’s going to kiss him. He can almost feel the warm press of his lips, feel the grip of his hand in his hair. But all Sheppard does is undo his seat belt.</p><p>“Your suitcase is in the boot. Your jeans are in it, too.”</p><p>The thoughtfulness of the gesture strikes him. He’s probably never going to see Sheppard again.</p><p>Sheppard says, “Remember, if they say you’re safe…”</p><p>“They’re going to kill me. Don’t get into vehicles with them. Don’t trust them. Got it.”</p><p>Sheppard nods, but there’s a desperation in his eyes that warns Rodney not to linger. He reaches for the door handle, ready for this nightmarish day to be over. Before he steps out, he turns back to Sheppard. “Good luck.”</p><p>The car speeds away as soon as he slams the boot shut.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>“What about this one, Meredith?” Jeannie calls, stepping out from behind a curtain, resplendent in white, a bodice of satin—he’s learnt more about wedding dresses than he ever cared to in the past hour—over a puffy looking gown part.</p><p>“You look beautiful,” he says, half expecting the words to sound snide out of habit, but it seems not even he can bring himself to sabotage this moment, however unintentionally.</p><p>He’d almost been late for breakfast that morning, having fallen straight asleep the moment he stepped into his hotel room and propelled himself on top the sheets. It had taken too long to scrub the feeling of travel off him, and too long to find a kiosk nearby that sold flowers before catching a cab. It was only as he’d fished his wallet out of his pocket to pay the fare that he’d found the post-it note. Sheppard must have tucked it in there while packing the jeans into his suitcase. All his belongings had been repacked with military precision, though he realises it was probably also a way of gathering intel.</p><p>The post-it had read <em>Stay hydrated, stay alive. Don</em><em>’t tell anyone.</em> There was even a smiley face. Rodney supposes he really never will see Sheppard again. And all those paranoid warnings—surely they’d have come for him in the night in full SWAT gear if they were true.</p><p>“Thank you,” Jeannie smiles, and Madison gurgles happily from where she’s sat on Rodney’s lap, tucked safely in her carrier. He’d held her this morning, with the correct grip to support her head and everything, but he’d still felt like he was going to drop her at any moment.</p><p>“You alright, Mer? Something on your mind?”</p><p>“No, no. Just—uh—” he scrambles for something to say. “I think this might be the one.”</p><p>Jeannie squeals. “You do?”</p><p>“Yeah.” The suit fitting had been relatively painless at least. The tailor at the shop could just make some adjustments to the tux he’d worn at the last office bash, which he’d attended for all of an hour before sneaking a bunch of food from the buffet and going home to watch old Star Trek reruns all by himself. Jeannie had rolled her eyes at that particular anecdote.</p><p>“So,” she squeezes in beside him on the ugly chaise-lounge couch, the woman working the floor busy at the desk for the moment. He hands her Madison’s carrier automatically. “I have to ask because you didn’t put it on your RSVP, but are you bringing a date?”</p><p>He thinks of messy dark hair and wide, green eyes. “No.”</p><p>“Would,” and Jeannie’s using her careful voice, one that he’s sure will annoy Madison to no end once she’s old enough, “You be thinking of someone you want to take?”</p><p>He crosses his arms, and, with some force, repeats himself. “No.”</p><p>“I’ve known you a long time. I can tell when something is eating at you.”</p><p>Damn Jeannie and her high insight score. “Maybe there is someone, but it doesn’t matter because it’s impossible.”</p><p>“What, they don’t like Babylon 5 impossible or…” Jeannie looks somber.</p><p>Sheppard might hate Star Trek. He might actually be the most annoying and goofy and muscle-car-obsessed jock he’s ever met. They might hate each other, no matter how compatible they are when it comes to kissing. Sheppard had looked beautiful in an otherworldly way, dipping in and out of the streetlights. He’d also taken every single quirk of Rodney’s in his stride. That hadn’t felt like they were on their way to hating each other—entirely the opposite, in fact.</p><p>“The second kind of impossible. Look, I don’t have a date, but please don’t sit me at the back or beside anyone really annoying.”</p><p>“We’ve not invited—”</p><p>He gives her a look. He really doesn’t want to be stuck discussing the merits of Tofurkey with Kaleb’s relatives for the entirety of the entirely vegetarian meal. He’s already wondering if he can pull off bringing cold cuts or some kind of jerky with him in the inside pocket of his tux.</p><p>“Okay, how about some of my old colleagues from the university then?” Her voice cautions against further complaints.</p><p>Rodney sighs. “That’s—”</p><p>“McKay? Rodney McKay?” A man in a dark suit and sunglasses asks, entering the shop. The two men following behind him exude matching airs of mystery.</p><p>“That’s Doctor Rodney McKay, and you are?”</p><p>The sunglasses get relocated to an inside pocket and exchanged for a badge. It looks like a genuine CSIS one. “Agent Kenmore. If you’d like to come with me, please?” His smile is friendly but vacant.</p><p>“Mer, what’s going on?” Jeannie asks, looking fierce despite the very puffy dress and baby carrier clutched to her chest. He knows she’s got a mean hook, either fist; all those boxing lessons had definitely helped her break his nose the last time they’d talked.</p><p>“Yes, Agent Kenmore, what exactly is going on?” Rodney pulls himself up to his full height and puffs out his chest, sure he still looks less fierce than Jeannie despite the fact that she isn’t even wearing shoes. He suddenly remembers he’s wearing his shirt with <em>cat-astrophic</em> in block capitals as well. Oh yeah, he must look downright terrifying.</p><p>Kenmore—if that’s even his real name—smiles again. Somehow that’s worse, despite his handsome features. “We just need to ask you some questions about one of the passengers on the flight you were on yesterday. It’s a matter of national security.”</p><p>Jeannie gasps.</p><p>“National security? Can you be more specific?” Rodney half laughs. This is the best they can come up with?</p><p>“We’re coordinating with the FBI. Please, if you just come with us we’ll explain everything once we’re at a secure location.”</p><p>Rodney scrutinises him. He doesn’t sound Canadian, but there’s something more than that, something that feels off about him.</p><p>“Mer, maybe you should go with them,” Jeannie says, elbowing him gently.</p><p>A woman crosses the shop floor towards them, power suit with shoulder pads straight from the 80s loudly projecting her authority before she reaches them. She must be the manager. “What appears to be the problem?”</p><p>“This man needs to come with us, Ma’am. It’s a matter of national security.” Another surreptitious flash of the badge. Rodney suppresses the childish urge to grab it off him and throw it across the room.</p><p>“I suggest you leave, sir,” she says to Rodney. Then, to Jeannie, “Let’s try on the last one, Miss McKay?”</p><p>Tension diffusing, Jeannie and Madison are bustled off into a changing room while Kenmore gives him another smile, looking like his favourite snack is Rodney flavour.</p><p>The last thing he needs to do right now is cause Jeannie more trouble. “I’m leaving the shop but I’m not coming with you.”</p><p>Kenmore shrugs.</p><p>As soon as Rodney makes it out the door, he starts running, suddenly cursing that he hasn’t ever pushed himself hard at the gym. Or set foot in one beyond the bare minimum NASA requires to let him work on some of the more top-secret stuff in Nevada.</p><p>He could be three times fitter, it would only be three times more futile. There are more suits waiting at the corner of the intersection. They catch him, grabbing hold of his arms so tight he can’t twist away. Trying a self-defence move he half remembers, he goes for their shins then drops his entire weight, but they’re too strong, too well trained.</p><p>He’s half laying on the floor when he sees Kenmore jogging towards him. “Let’s try having that conversation again, shall we?”</p><p>Kenmore does something with his hands, some kind of secret military or intelligence code, and suddenly Rodney is being lifted into the back of a black SUV with tinted windows.</p><p>“Get off me!” Rodney yells, but the door slams shut, locking.</p><p>He shuffles to the other side, reaching for handle—but Kenmore is somehow already there, smiling at him. Kenmore tuts, and pushes Rodney back into the car. They start driving as soon as he’s sat beside Rodney, another identical SUV following behind visible out of the back window.</p><p>“So, Doctor McKay,” Kenmore starts while Rodney tries to prepare himself mentally. This is going to be worse than one of Kavanaugh’s rants, if not in every aspect, then at least emotionally. “You were on flight PGA-30, that’s Pegasus Airlines, from Las Vegas to Ottawa.”</p><p>Escape, that’s what he needs to focus on. He’s a genius, this should be no problem!</p><p>“I know what flight I was on. I don’t consent to this. I’m a Canadian citizen, let me out!” Rodney says, trying to buy time. They’re already en route to leave the city.</p><p>There’s no partition between them and the driver, but he thinks Kenmore might cuff him to the door or something if he makes a grab for the wheel, then he’ll be really fucked. The door lock though, that’s a relatively simple system. He should be able to bypass it. But how to do it with Kenmore sitting so close…</p><p>“On the flight you met this man, John Sheppard.”</p><p>A photo pulled from nowhere lands on his lap unceremoniously. Rodney picks it up. It’s Sheppard alright, but his hair is too short and his jaw is as tight as a rubber band that’s about to snap. He’s in BDUs and a tac vest, the sandy camouflage kind. So he was a soldier.</p><p>“He’s dangerous. A significant threat to the safety of both Canada and the United States. You’re safe now, but you were lucky to get away.”</p><p>From what? Sheppard is the one who tried to save him from being drugged, landed the plane and got him to his hotel.</p><p>Kenmore continues, dropping another photo on his lap. Sheppard again, probably taken at the same time, just from a different angle. “He transferred to our department after a dishonourable discharge. We thought he had turned over a new leaf, but then he went crazy, kidnapping a scientist and–”</p><p>“If he’s so crazy, why did you put him on such an important assignment?” Rodney asks, half listening. Sheppard had said they would lie. There is probably some truth to it, like most stories, but right now he isn’t inclined to fully believe either man.</p><p>His only chance would be to incapacitate Kenmore. If he was out cold, there would only be the driver left to worry about. He could then either take him too or—no, if he opens the panel in the door, the wire that connects the lock to the controls up front would be flimsy enough that he could rip it out with his bare hands.</p><p>“He’s an excellent liar, Doctor McKay. He had the FBI’s top specialists fooled.”</p><p>His mind gets sidetracked for a second: why would a lowly grunt be treated by top specialists? Something is definitely up. He needs to find some way to knock Kenmore out, but there’s nothing laying around the back of the car. He could try using his forehead, but that’s better for trying to break someone’s nose, not to mention the potential brain cell loss, thank you very much. No, the best option has to be—</p><p>“Whatever Sheppard told you, you’re safe with us. He killed eight people on the plane, fifteen more during the kidnapping. He even blew up the lab.”</p><p>—grabbing Kenmore’s gun. But how? Should he fake crying? Feeling hurt at having been played like a harlequin heroine?</p><p>“We just need you to tell us everything he said to you. We’re taking you somewhere secure where you’ll be safe.”</p><p>Safe? Secure? Oh fuck! He has to get out of here.</p><p>“What do you mean I’ll be safe? You just said how dangerous he is,” Rodney argues.</p><p>“We just need you to tell us where he and the code are so we can stabilise the situation. You’re safe now—”</p><p>The car passes into a tunnel and Rodney can’t suppress a scream. This is it, this is the end—but then they’re back out in the cold winter sun.</p><p>Kenmore looks somewhere between confused and disgusted, but most importantly, distracted.</p><p>He vaguely registers gunfire as he dives forward, reaching under Kenmore’s arm for his gun. Surprisingly, it works, as does the way he lobs the butt at his temple. Ready to threaten the driver, he holds the gun up, safety off. He’d taken a basic training course when he’d first moved to the States; Americans are far more gun happy than Canadians. He’s a poor shot, but the driver doesn’t know that.</p><p>Too bad the driver hasn’t even noticed that his boss has been knocked out by their hostage.</p><p>“We’re taking fire, sir. We think it’s—” but he cuts himself off, lurching into the next lane, a red motorbike racing past. The slope of the driver’s shoulders, wrapped in tight leather, looks familiar.</p><p>“Get in the back seat,” Rodney yells, too loudly for the interior of the car and so intense that the driver jumps.</p><p>“I—” Brown eyes briefly focus on the gun pointed at them, but it’s whatever they see on Rodney’s face that makes the driver scramble.</p><p>Safety on, Rodney takes his place at the wheel and shoves the gun into the inside pocket of his jacket. Now that he’s in control of the car, he doesn’t know what to do. His hands threaten to shake with panic, but he clutches the wheel too tightly to let them.</p><p>Meanwhile the figure on the motorbike has sped up, getting a long enough lead on the SUVs to twist around suddenly. Riding towards them at full speed, the driver unclips his helmet and throws it off, revealing a very familiar mop of messy dark hair and aviators. Hysterically, Rodney thinks the Top Gun theme should be playing.</p><p>Before Rodney can react properly, gunfire from the neighbouring SUV takes out Sheppard’s front wheel. But he’s already jumping off the bike, landing right in front of Rodney on the windshield as his bike crashes into the other car.</p><p>“Doctor McKay,” Sheppard yells.</p><p>“Sheppard!” Rodney screams.</p><p>“Open the passenger door.” Sheppard points.</p><p>Suddenly there’s another set of hands gripping his arms—the driver in the backseat. Oh, he really should have knocked him out. He does his best to punch him while keeping one hand on the wheel. The SUV swerves worryingly.</p><p>“Aim for his throat!” Sheppard shouts, managing to look cool as a cucumber as he holds on, balancing in a low crouch.</p><p>Taking a risk, Rodney turns his head and the next punch finds it mark. He surprises himself, he’s actually pretty good at this. Turning back, he can’t make out much of the highway ahead.</p><p>“I can’t see where I’m going!” Rodney yells, trying to look past Sheppard. But no matter how far he cranes his neck, a strip of exposed skin and line of dark hair between Sheppard’s leather jacket and—yes, they’re leather trousers, too—stares him straight in the face.</p><p>“Open. The door.” Sheppard repeats.</p><p>Suddenly there’s more gunfire and Rodney screams again, the car straying beneath his grip.</p><p>“It’s getting a bit bullet-y out here so could you—” Sheppard raps on the glass and points at the door. “That jacket looks great on you by the way.”</p><p>Rodney leans over and opens it. Sheppard’s beside him a few seconds later, bringing the smell of smoking rubber with him. He speeds past a family Subaru and a Mini, then indicates for the exit.</p><p>“Good idea,” Sheppard pants. Rodney supposes holding onto the front of a moving car while speeding down a motorway will do that to a guy. “You’re doing great.” His voice is soothing, a nice contrast to the noise of bullets hitting the side of the vehicle. “You’re not wearing that to the wedding, are you?”</p><p>“What? No.” Trying to escape from a government shooter at the tail-end of a high-speed chase is the perfect time for small talk, of course it is. “Wait—you said it was nice!”</p><p>“It matches your shirt.” Sheppard is smirking now. “One sec, McKay.”</p><p>He reaches across Rodney’s stomach, going for the gun Rodney had taken from Kenmore. A brush of touch through layers of clothing shouldn’t make him feel like he’s fourteen again, flicking through a magazine and unable to tear himself away from the sudden spread of a shirtless man. He wishes Sheppard would touch him properly, and not in the middle of a high speed car chase.</p><p>Then the touch is gone, and Sheppard is opening the window to pull himself half out the car, sitting on the ledge while he lets off two precise shots. Head and heart, Rodney thinks.</p><p>“Hey, do you have to keep killing people?” Rodney asks as they finally turn off the highway, window firmly shut and Sheppard beside him again.</p><p>“They were shooting at us.” Sheppard sounds a little hurt and offended, stashing his shades in an inside pocket, jacket hanging open.</p><p>“Yes, but can’t you aim for their kneecaps or something?”</p><p>He catches Sheppard rolling his eyes. In the rear-view mirror Kenmore is still out cold.</p><p>“Okay, McKay. Just for you.” A pause. “That was great timing with the door. You saved us.”</p><p>Rodney snorts. “I’m pretty sure that was you with your stupid motorbike stunt.”</p><p>He brings the car to a halt in an underpass, checking with Sheppard who nods at him.</p><p>“So,” Rodney says, feeling uncharacteristically quiet. “They really were going to kill me.”</p><p>Sheppard looks at him sadly. “Yeah. Michael Kenmore is a piece of work.”</p><p>“He’s an asshole,” Rodney grumbles. “Should we tie him up or something?”</p><p>“No. We need to leave now. No time for that.”</p><p>“Are you sure?”</p><p>“Yes, McKay.”</p><p>They get out the car, Sheppard slipping the gun into his waistband. “Go where?”</p><p>“To meet up with Radek.”</p><p>Rodney stops in the middle of the street as Sheppard continues toward an old Honda Accord from the 90s. “Who?”</p><p>“Look, I was supposed to meet up with him last night, but I couldn’t let them get you,” Sheppard says, strained. He pulls a knife from somewhere and starts messing about with the door lock.</p><p>“I—Thank you.” And Rodney really means it. “Shouldn’t I be okay now?” But even as Rodney asks he knows how stupid it sounds. How can he go back to his life with these men following him? He sucks in air. How can he let them interfere with Jeannie’s wedding? Another hurried breath. Oh fuck, what about his job? How is he—</p><p>“Hey, deep breaths,” Sheppard says, low and right next to his ear.</p><p>Ah yes, he’s hyperventilating.</p><p>Sheppard continues, a hand on his back steering him gently towards the car. “Come on, sit down.”</p><p>The seat is lumpy but the hand dipping beneath his collar is warm. It gives him something to focus on as Sheppard’s voice washes over him. He usually doesn’t like to be touched when he’s like this, but he knows Sheppard won’t hurt him. Past the rush of danger and panic, he knows Sheppard will protect him. It helps, knowing someone is there with him.</p><p>Slowly, his thoughts condense into manageable worries, which if he doesn’t examine too closely, he can compartmentalise for later. Eventually his breaths even out. Sheppard is murmuring something about blue skies.</p><p>“Okay, I’m okay,” Rodney tries to smile but he feels his mouth wobble. “Well, I’m not okay but—you know.”</p><p>“I—yeah.” Sheppard licks his lips. “Look, we’re going to have to stick together… because of our situation. At least until it’s all sorted out, okay?”</p><p>“Sorted out?” Rodney echoes.</p><p>Sheppard’s expression is a perfect poker-face. “Yeah. Sorted out,” he emphasises.</p><p>“But what about the wedding?” He and Jeannie have been getting on so well, he can’t abandon that now. Not again.</p><p>“Look, I’ll be succinct, okay?” Sheppard smiles tightly. He holds his hand up, his fingers forming a vertical line beside his face: “Your chances of survival with me.”</p><p>He lowers his hand to the height of Rodney’s knees: “Without me.”</p><p>He repeats the action. “With me, without me.”</p><p>Rodney sighs. Now that his brain isn’t overloaded with panic, he can think more clearly. Jeannie will probably assume he’s with CSIS. Maybe the situation is salvageable.</p><p>“You can’t go to the wedding if you’re dead,” Sheppard adds.</p><p>He’s right. Rodney nods. “Okay. Let’s go before backup gets here.”</p><p>“Good idea.” Sheppard gives his knee a pat for good measure and slides across the hood to the driver’s side. Show-off.</p><p>Rodney gets to feel useful when Sheppard hotwires the car, trading his larger knife for a Swiss army one and prying open the plastic under the wheel.</p><p>“No, no, it’s—” Rodney sighs, leaning over and bracing his forearms on Sheppard’s bony knees. “That one.”</p><p>Sheppard hesitates a moment, but cuts the wire obediently and has the car started in a nick of time. It’s only once they reach the city limit that Rodney’s heart finishes slowing down to its usual rhythm. As they hit the highway, Sheppard explains that the man they’re headed to meet is some kind of scientist working for the government who wanted out, and who Sheppard helped escape. It had all gone smoothly up until the flight.</p><p>“So, why are they after him? What did he discover?” Whatever technology turned weapon it is, sooner or later someone else would discover the same thing. It’s simply the nature of entropy. Still, he can’t imagine the pain of his work being co-opted like that. A shiver runs down his spine. He can’t imagine it <em>yet</em>. Thank goodness Carter is his boss.</p><p>“A perpetual energy battery,” Sheppard says a beat too late.</p><p>“A perpetual energy battery? How stupid do you think I am? That’s impossible.” He catches onto Sheppard’s smile before he really gets going. “No, what is it really?”</p><p>“In a bit,” Sheppard laughs. “I’ll show you.”</p><p>“There better be food. I’m hypoglycemic, you know.”</p><p>“Noted.”</p><p>True to Sheppard’s word they turn into the next gas station and stock up on some snacks and drinks, chocolate milk and juice for Rodney, some kind of sports electrolyte thing for Sheppard. The crisps and pastries are to share. Nothing says <em>congratulations, you</em><em>’re alive for now!</em> quite like sugary drinks and food that you’ll have to wash your hands after eating.</p><p>“So…” Rodney says, already halfway through a bag of cheesy onion goodness.</p><p>Raising his eyebrows, Sheppard reaches inside his jacket and pulls out a capsule the size and shape of a film canister, but orange. Twisting it open, a USB falls onto Sheppard’s palm. “Radek explained it as being some kind of ultimate defence, but he’s worried they’ll turn it into a key. Rewrite it to open every backdoor on the internet or something like that.”</p><p>“That’s also impossible.”</p><p>“OK, but this really is some kind of computer thing.”</p><p>“So he could just have given you junk and now you’re in the cross hairs?” Rodney suddenly wonders if Sheppard is a complete moron. Either way, he isn’t very impressed by this Radek character.</p><p>“It’s not finished yet. He’s been stalling them for weeks, until I managed to get him out.”</p><p>“A backdoor? To the <em>entire</em> internet?”</p><p>Sheppard bites his lip. “I think it’s mostly to do with military programs and defences. They’re similar enough. That guy—he’s a genius. Unparalleled in his field.”</p><p>Rodney is <em>unparalleled in his field</em>, just, it’s astrophysics and not secret spy hacking software.  “But he’s not with you.”</p><p>“No, I was on my way to meet up with him when, well, I bumped into you.” Sheppard says it like it’s some kind of meet-cute you’d see happen in this summer’s Hollywood blockbuster.</p><p>“Twice.”</p><p>Sheppard smiles his genuine smile again. “Twice,” he agrees.</p><p>Rodney wonders what it will take to get Sheppard to smile, truly smile, with his teeth showing. “So, we’re going to meet up with this Radek guy, fix the program, and save the world?”</p><p>Sheppard nods, his eyes going somehow soft, as if a word from Rodney could twist the world into a shape he wouldn’t recognise.</p><p>“Our own mission impossible,” Rodney babbles.</p><p>“Yeah, McKay.”</p><p>And with that, Rodney decides he’s had just about enough of improbable spy plots for one day. He’s still not really feeling recovered from being shot at multiple times earlier this morning either. “Alright,” Rodney says, and dedicates himself entirely to finishing his snack.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>They stop at an out of the way diner for a proper meal. Now that he’s looking for it, Rodney can recognise the way Sheppard’s sat them close to the fire exit with a good view of the entrance. He watches Sheppard’s eyes track movements in the distorted silver guitar behind Rodney’s head. Watchful, but unobtrusive. There’s an alertness to him that goes beyond surveillance tactics, not that his droopy eyelids would let you know it. The bags under his eyes make Rodney wonder when he last had a decent night’s sleep.</p><p>“What?” Sheppard asks. Rodney realises he’s been staring and stuffs some fries into his mouth so that he has a moment to come up with something less creepy to say.</p><p>“How long have you been a spy?”</p><p>“I’m not a spy. I just…” he shrugs, leaning back into the seat without forfeiting his slouch. “Wrong time, wrong place.”</p><p>“Huh. So what do you do?”</p><p>“I’m a pilot, or I used to be.”</p><p>He remembers the photo Kenmore showed him. Sheppard had looked younger, but not around the eyes. Afghanistan, he guesses. “In the military?”</p><p>“Yeah. They’ve got the fastest planes. I used to be a Major.”</p><p>Rodney doesn’t miss the past tense, but before he can do what he does best, which is push and prod a person until they inevitably react, a waitress sets down a milkshake between them.</p><p>Sheppard drags it towards himself with both hands, closing his eyes as he takes a long pull of vanilla through the cheesy red and white straw. Considering they’re still in Canada, this amount of virulent Americana seems tasteless and offensive. But seeing the look of contentment on Sheppard’s face as he steals sips from the tall glass, head propped on his fists, Rodney suddenly doesn’t mind.</p><p>“Ice cream always helps in times of great stress,” Sheppard says, smiling with his eyes.</p><p>“Is that a scientific fact?” Rodney asks, teasing.</p><p>Mustering himself, Sheppard answers, “Absolutely. I have a lifetime’s worth of experiments to back me up.”</p><p>Rodney laughs.</p><p>“Tastes even better with fries,” Sheppard hints, looking at Rodney’s half full side dish of potato-y goodness.</p><p>“Well, maybe you should have saved some of your own,” Rodney harrumphs. He doesn’t share food, it’s a McKay rule. Unless it’s a life or death situation, of course, but it’s not, so Sheppard will just have to deal.</p><p>Sheppard fixes him with wide eyes. Would the shade more likely be called green or hazel? Either way, the hopeful look alone is not going to work.</p><p>“I’ll trade you: fries for some of my shake,” Sheppard offers.</p><p>Now that’s something Rodney can work with. “Alright.”</p><p>“You first, I like to dip.” Sheppard pushes the milkshake between them. He may have never gone to spy school, but he definitely has the ‘making innocuous things sound like double-entendres’ part of espionage down.</p><p>Rodney reaches for the milkshake, relishing the slight slipperiness of the cool glass. It’s only once he’s taken a sip, and mmm, the shake is delicious—that he realises his lips have just touched the same place Sheppard’s have.</p><p>It shouldn’t be a big deal, they’ve shared an actual kiss, but… looking at Sheppard, he wants to do it again. The thought sends a tingle down his spine. The slide of his warm lips, the slight rasp of his stubble, feeling his strong grip tip his jaw up just so… Maybe the shake is giving him brain freeze. Sheppard is protecting him because it’s the decent thing to do, just like it was the decent thing to do to get Radek out. Rodney needs to fly his head back down to Earth. The kiss should stay in the clouds, unmarred by the gravity of reality, which is that a happy outcome for Sheppard isn’t very likely. Even if Rodney gets his life back, and all the other ifs—<em>does Sheppard want to kiss him too, does he like cats, what about Star Trek</em>—what are the chances that he could remain in the US or Canada?</p><p>Sheppard is giving him a strange look.</p><p>“What?” Rodney asks.</p><p>Sheppard makes an unintelligible hand gesture. “Fries.”</p><p>Rodney pushes the plate towards him and they sit in amicable silence, Rodney steadily working through about half the shake as Sheppard unceremoniously dips his fries in the cool vanilla sweetness. Cautiously, he tries it, too. It’s good.</p><p>In the background, the radio goes from some club hit to Dolly Parton to something in Québécois.</p><p>“Okay, the rest is mine,” Sheppard declares, and Rodney passes back an amount that’s more like a fifth than a half.</p><p>Sheppard doesn’t complain, though, just finishes it as Rodney pulls out his phone to text Jeannie.</p><p>“They can track that, you know. I’ll pick you up a burner, meet you back at the car?”</p><p>Rodney nods, already taking out the battery and SIM card. He figures he’ll keep the phone so that when he’s safe he can at least retrieve his contacts again. When he asks for the bill, the waitress tells him Sheppard has already paid, so he leaves a tip and goes to wait by the car, dumping his SIM down a drain as he goes.</p><p>It’s a bit windy, but he relishes it, the way it buffets against his cheeks and neck. No matter how strange it is that he’s suddenly on the run, that he fancies his would be action-hero, or that now is the first time in days his thoughts are actually turning back to wormhole vectors—no matter how out of the norm, the wind is still the same. It winds and twists it’s own path through the sky, like how space folds itself smaller, a slipstream that will let them travel faster than light, he’s sure of it.</p><p>Before he has a chance to start feeling cold and ruin the brief interlude of serenity, Sheppard slopes towards him. “Here.” Sheppard tosses him a flip phone he fumbles to catch.</p><p>“Thanks. So, what’s this Radek guy like?”</p><p>“He’s a bit like you actually. Mouthy,” Sheppard smirks.</p><p>“Charming,” Rodney grimaces, and gets in his side of the car, a gold Ford Focus this time.</p><p>As Sheppard starts the engine, Bruce Springsteen croons softly from the radio. <em>The highway's jammed with broken heroes on a last-chance power drive</em><em>…</em></p><p>Sheppard had changed into jeans at the last gas station, but the leather jacket and rakish hair make him look rough around the edges; with the evening sun painting him in warm hues, beautiful is the word at the forefront of Rodney’s mind.</p><p>
  <em>Everybody's out on the run tonight, but there's no place left to hide. </em>
</p><p>Sheppard turns the noise down. “I got this, McKay. Nap or something, it’s fine.”</p><p>He opens his mouth to protest, but snaps it shut again on principal. Instead of talking he texts Jeannie and dozes off, food heavy in his stomach and silhouette of Sheppard promising to shield him from harm. If he dreams, he doesn’t remember when he wakes, fuzzily registering that the car has stopped.</p><p>A poke in the arm from Sheppard and he’s more alert, taking in the street lights twinkling on the calm water of the inland bay.</p><p>“We’re here,” Sheppard says unnecessarily. He doesn’t move, and for a moment Rodney doesn’t want to either. They’ve been in a strange kind of limbo, not being shot at and enjoying greasy fast food. He doesn’t want his weird not-quite-a-road-trip with Sheppard to end.</p><p>Rodney gets out of the car, waits for Sheppard, then follows him to an out of the way building. It’s not as dingy and sad as it looks from the outside, and the container Radek’s been living out of actually looks pretty habitable, just not for Rodney. Sleeping in a camp bed fucks his back up for days, even seeing it makes him shudder.</p><p>The scribbles on the walls are interesting enough, like a Jackson Pollock painting of various fundamental physics equations and laws. Some thermodynamics here, Lorentz and Gauss next to each other there, some wacky geometry that makes Rodney think that just maybe he’s excited to meet this guy, except—</p><p>“Er, Sheppard. Where is Radek?”</p><p>Sheppard’s mouth is a hard, angry line. He’s frowning at the unmade bed and a coffee cup that’s been left part full. Walking out of the container turned camping tent he yells, “Zelenka!”</p><p>“So much for <em>covert</em> operations,” Rodney mutters. The name sounds familiar, but Rodney can’t quite place it.</p><p>“Zelenka, I’m not even that late!” Sheppard continues.</p><p>Unsure as to what happens next, Rodney decides to poke about the room. The coffee smells old, about a day, and there’s a pokey campfire thing and tins of ravioli. The board of wood atop some bricks that forms a desk is more interesting. The blueprints there—that haven’t been completely burnt—look like something out of Star Trek, but The Next Generation or Voyager era. They outline mechanical implants for the human body, under the skin eye enhancements, a super strength knee joint, and a control node that looks suspiciously like something straight out of Stepford Wives.</p><p>The only other thing that survived is a few pages of code painstakingly written out by hand. This must relate to the strange not-a-backdoor-but-something-code Sheppard was going on about.</p><p>“Hey, it doesn’t look like he’s here.” Sheppard says from right behind him.</p><p>It makes Rodney jump, and he hopes Sheppard didn’t see. “Brilliant. What next?”</p><p>“I need to clear the place, and look to see if he’s left any indication of where he’s gone…”</p><p>Sheppard trails off, walking up to the wall in front of Rodney where Radek has crudely drawn the cast of the original Star Wars trilogy. “Huh, he always did have a talent for the arts,” Sheppard smirks, turning so as to invite Rodney to share the joke.</p><p>It’s nice, how Sheppard does that. Even amidst all the action, he values Rodney’s input and makes sure to give him as much data as he can. Or to make fun of R2D2’s very long hoover-like legs with him.</p><p>“They’re probably watching the place. Here,” Sheppard hands him a gun, the same one he’d stolen from Kenmore, suddenly all serious again. Rodney thinks it’s a Baretta, but guns are not an area of knowledge he trusts his memory for.</p><p>“What about you?” Rodney asks.</p><p>Sheppard pulls another gun from his waistband, smiling in a pleased but kind of uncomfortable way.</p><p>“Two guns? Against how many?” Rodney asks.</p><p>“We’ll manage.” Sheppard takes the lead, leaving Rodney to hastily stuff the pages of code into his inside pocket before jogging to catch up.</p><p>A few shadowy figures wait for them and he stifles a whimper. Sheppard signals with his hand for Rodney to wait behind a stack of shelves. Or at least Rodney hopes that’s what Sheppard meant, because as much as he’d like to help he feels like he’s about to scream.</p><p>Rodney can shoot. He’s hit the vague head and chest area while getting his license. It’s not something that he’s incapable of doing, or something he’s never tried before. No, it’s the danger and insanity of the whole situation that has his knees locking up as he hears shots being fired.</p><p>And that’s Sheppard being fired at. Sheppard, who had no second thoughts about speeding down the highway on a bike to save him. And Rodney can’t move a muscle to go and help him. He’s not Batman, never has been, he thinks miserably. And worse, he’s wallowing instead of trying to help.</p><p>“Rodney,” Sheppard’s nasal tone finally unlocks his muscles, making him whip around to face Sheppard down, barrel pointed at his face.</p><p>Sheppard gives him an offended look, but the friendly one, not like when he was looking at Kenmore. Right now he just kind of looks like Rodney had threatened to kick him in the shin.</p><p>“Oh,” Rodney says, lowering the gun. “I—I froze. I meant to—you—"</p><p>Sheppard releases the mag clip from his gun, but it’s empty. He chucks the whole thing away. “Listen—”</p><p>A zooming of wires alerts Rodney to the guy that’s—and this is literally, actually, fucking happening—descending down towards them from the ceiling on a zip wire.</p><p>“Rodney!” Sheppard yells, and he doesn’t even have time to appreciate how his name sounds when it’s coming from Sheppard because a menacing figure in full SWAT gear is lunging towards him.</p><p>Rodney freezes. Sick to the stomach he screams, because apparently those are the only muscles in his body that deign to actually respond to the signals he’s trying to send out. He will himself to move, to shoot like he knows he can but instead he just screams again.</p><p>A warm hand around his own helps reposition the gun so it’s aiming for the figure, a gentle touch over his forefinger helps press down the trigger so that the gun fires. It happens in a few meagre seconds, just long enough for Rodney to gulp down air into his suddenly too small lungs, but the line of warmth at his side stays pressed close against him even after the figure crumples to the ground.</p><p>“Easy, McKay,” Sheppard says, his voice low and breath hot in Rodney’s ear. Sheppard moves for him, steadily maneuvering their bodies as one to intercept another shooter. A hand on his hip directs him a few steps back so they catch the next ceiling dropper. Rodney has never felt so graceful in all his life.</p><p>A turn has Sheppard’s front pressed right up along his back. A shot, then another, and if Rodney’s right there’s only one more bullet left. Moving backward, Sheppard keeps him pressed to him with an insistent touch. And he can feel him, half hard against his left cheek. Sheppard is fires the gun a final time, the assailant in front of them dropping to ground with an indignant groan.</p><p>The gun drops from Rodney’s hand when Sheppard lets go. It would be stupid to feel hurt that Sheppard’s moving away, because he’s grabbing a semi-automatic rifle from the woman they’ve just stopped–because he’s busy<em> literally saving their lives</em>, but still. Rodney wants him back. He wants to feel the line of his body, his slim hips, he wants to explore if there’s more to what he felt than combat adrenaline.</p><p>“Watch out–” Sheppard says, but again, he’s too late.</p><p>A sharp, but strangely distant sensation makes him look down to where one of the fallen is trying to carve a piece of his thigh out with a knife. This time Rodney doesn’t scream. He knocks the knife out of the man’s hand and steps closer to Sheppard, no damage done.</p><p>It’s then that he sees the blood slick texture of Sheppard’s t-shirt peeking out from under well-loved leather. Stupidly, he presses his hand against the wet patch, vaguely remembering <em>staunch the blood flow</em> and <em>stomach wounds are the most painful</em>.</p><p>“You’ve been shot,” he mumbles, barely aware of what he’s saying. “No, no, no, this is bad, you’re not supposed to be hurt–”</p><p>He sees the blood smeared on his palm and promptly passes out. </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The world is fuzzy when he wakes, the throbbing pain in his head overwhelming before he opens his eyes. It only gets worse with the hazy morning sun. In front of him he sees sand, palms, and in the distance, the ocean. Oh fuck fuck <em>fuck</em>. Where the actual Newton is he?</p><p>Then, as his spatial awareness slowly and painfully returns he realises that he’s not looking at the beach on a tropical island. He can’t smell any salt, there’s no tell-tale <em>shhhhhh</em> of the tide. He’s laying down on what feels like a rather hard mattress. Sparing a thankful thought for his back, he props himself up on his elbows and immediately regrets it since it sends the palm trees and his stomach spinning violently.</p><p>Once he can open his eyes without inducing nausea, he realises the beach scene is a mural painted on the wall opposite the bed he’s laying on. His throat is dry and he’s hungry but he can feel all his limbs, so far he seems to be okay.</p><p>Carefully, he edges himself up and into a sitting position against the headboard of the double bed. The rest of the room takes on the non-descript functionality of a hotel room, all pretty much what he’d expect, except the mural. Belatedly, he realises he’s only wearing his striped boxers and a bathrobe. Has he been captured? Left alone with people after him? The last thing he remembers is passing out—there’d been guns and <em>Sheppard had been shot.</em></p><p> “Sheppard?” He calls out, voice shaking.</p><p>A door in the far right of his vision flies open a few seconds later, a half-naked Sheppard with a towel slung around his neck bursting out, a few wisps of steam following him.</p><p>“McKay, is everything alright?” Sheppard sounds worried.</p><p>“I—” Rodney sighs in relief. He’s not been left alone and Sheppard is alive.</p><p>“McKay?” Sheppard is more hench than his t-shirts let on. Hairier than average, too, or maybe Rodney’s brain has been oversaturated by the wax-crazy media.</p><p>“Fine, everything’s fine. I mean, it’s not really, but there’s no immediate danger,” Rodney explains. Unless he counts how much of a health hazard Sheppard is for his libido.</p><p>“Oh, okay.”</p><p>“It’s just… you weren’t there.” Rodney feels small when he says it, more helpless than usual and hating it with renewed bitterness. He has skills, he’s smart and stubborn and is used to getting his way, but ever since the ill-fated flight out of Nevada he’s felt himself get flung against things he can’t fight.</p><p>Sheppard shifts his weight. “Okay. I was just in the shower. I’m here now.”</p><p>“Yes, I can see that.”</p><p>Sheppard scrubs at his wet hair with the towel around his neck, not caring that Rodney is staring at him openly. The movement reveals a gash of red across his side. <em>From where he</em><em>’s been shot,</em> Rodney remembers. <em>Because he was protecting me.</em></p><p>Rodney swallows, “Do you need help with that?”</p><p>Sheppard’s face shifts from surprise to warmth as he tracks Rodney’s gaze. “Nah, it’s just a scratch. Plus, you might faint again.”</p><p>“Pass. Out,” Rodney grinds his teeth on the words. “It’s a perfectly understandable reaction given the circumstances.”</p><p>Sheppard rolls his eyes, decidedly not soothing the hit Rodney’s masculinity has taken.</p><p>“Where are we by the way?”</p><p>“Somewhere safe. We needed to regroup before meeting up with Radek.”</p><p>“You found a clue?”</p><p>“He’s with friends, safe for now.”</p><p>Since that clears up his primary concerns of their safety and continued safety, it leaves one very important question. Rodney crosses his arms. “And what exactly am I wearing?”</p><p>“A robe.” Sheppard looks nonplussed.</p><p>“I clearly remember not wearing one the last time I was conscious,” Rodney says, his words clipped into little angry bursts of energy he’s firing at Sheppard.</p><p>“Well, uh,” Sheppard rubs the back of his neck. “Your clothes kind of needed a wash. There was blood and mud…”</p><p>“And you couldn’t have woken me?” It’s stupid to feel embarrassed about his body. He’s intelligent and can be extremely thoughtful, and he's not bad looking either. But next to Sheppard’s grace and beauty he can’t help but feel inadequate. He knows he has a bit of a belly, that his scar from getting his appendix out is wonky and his hairline is slowly but surely receding.</p><p>“You were out cold.”</p><p>At least Sheppard doesn’t say faint again.</p><p>When Rodney continues to stare Sheppard down, using his silence instead of his words, Sheppard sighs, still not looking Rodney in the eye. “I’ve been trained to dismantle and reassemble a gun while blindfolded and with my hands tied, I can manage to undress another man without peeking.”</p><p>Rodney supposes the implied apology will have to do since Sheppard looks like he’s about to strain something. He hadn’t touched Rodney’s boxers, at least. “Alright.”</p><p>“This place does room service if you want anything,” Sheppard suggests, pulling a laminated menu off the desk and whirling it at him like a frisbee. “I’ll have a burger.” Sheppard disappears back into the steam.</p><p>Rodney uses the phone on the desk to order.</p><p>All his clothes but his sports jacket have been washed and draped around this room to dry by Sheppard. He pulls the code out of the pocket and settles back onto the bed. Might as well see what this is all actually about.</p><p>It’s tricky, too tricky without his equipment and more time and someone to bounce his ideas off of. Suddenly his burner rings. It’s Jeannie.</p><p>“Hi Mer, are you okay?”</p><p>He considers his robe and the island mural carefully. “Mostly. Look, do you have a minute? I need to pick your brain.”</p><p>“I—what?”</p><p>It’s all the excuse he needs to explain the problem. So much for the government hunting after them—this thing is full of fatal errors. That it’s supposed to be working code is ridiculous. It doesn’t take him long to find them all, and with Jeannie in his ear he’s twice as fast. He doesn’t want to admit it, but they make a good team.</p><p>“Enough with the code. What about you? Are you okay?”</p><p>“I—I think so. What about you?”</p><p>“There’s so much to do. Will they let you come to the wedding?” She asks in a small voice.</p><p>Of course they both understand government agencies and their dystopian whims. How sometimes life tugs you away from what matters in a way completely out of your control. “I want to but—I don’t know if I can. I’ll call you again when I can.”</p><p>“That… that’s good enough,” Jeannie says, before excusing herself because Madison needs her. Rodney’s glad that this time around he’s found the right thing to say. It’s not fair on her either way.</p><p>The fixed code stares back at him, blue pen over black, but he doesn’t feel the characteristic triumph of solving a problem. He just feels miserable that he’s going to miss his sister’s wedding.</p><p>Sheppard returns, dumping medical supplies on the corner of the bed, still half naked. The code gets relegated to the bedside table. Sheppard pulls the chair from the desk in the corner of the room towards the bed, sitting down to liberally apply salve to his wound.</p><p>Rodney watches, remembering the shot, but little else except flashes and a phantom clench of fear around his heart. Breathing in deep, he forces it to fade again. He watched the slow shifts of John’s fingers, their movements hypnotic. He times his breaths to the dabs and suddenly breathing is easy.</p><p>It’s over too soon, and Sheppard’s craning his neck to fit the large bandage over the area, smoothing it down with one long sensual stroke down his abdomen. With dizzying clarity, Rodney recalls how Sheppard had been half mast in the heat of battle. Rodney’s a guy, he knows how these things sometimes are. It makes him feel a bit better about how suddenly erotic Sheppard applying bruise cream to his other side is, but only a tiny bit. The way Sheppard is caressing his own skin is obscene. Rodney can almost feel the rustle and rasp of Sheppard’s chest hair beneath his fingers.</p><p>“Do you need any…” Sheppard is holding out the tube, but trails off, eyebrows rising in surprise as he meets Rodney’s eyes.</p><p>“I,” Rodney swallows. “I’m not sorry I kissed you. You obviously thought I was some kind of enemy agent and after information or something and—I should have—not that it wasn’t incredible and I want to do it again—it’s just—I wish it hadn’t happened like that.”</p><p>Sheppard blinks. “Okay.”</p><p>“I was being really forward.” It’s mortifying. Who just kisses essentially a complete stranger on a plane? “I did think you were flirting with me, to be fair.”</p><p>“Ah.” Sheppard’s face is remarkably unreadable.</p><p>Rodney has to close his eyes, the shame is becoming too much. It’s not science, there’s no law or equation to back him up, no plan he knows will succeed or reason to be arrogant.  </p><p>The mattress dips beside him, and then again on the other side.</p><p>He opens his eyes to a shy smile. “And you want to do it again?” Sheppard sounds vulnerable, letting Rodney see a side of him he's only seen flashes of.</p><p>Struggling against the grip around his biceps, “Yes.”</p><p>Then Sheppard’s kissing him again. It’s fast and dirty, picking up where they left off. Rodney’s hands go for his belt, but an accidental brush against his side causes Sheppard to tense up. If he weren’t so close he wouldn’t feel it, and there’s no other indication from Sheppard that it hurts. He’s too much the stoic and silent type, Rodney is learning.</p><p>He kisses Sheppard more softly in apology, caressing Sheppard’s skin almost unbearably gently where his thumbs can reach. Then Sheppard licks a line up his neck. Rodney whimpers. Sheppard’s hair tickles his nose, damp and unruly. He smells clean from the shower, no trace of deodorant, only the strange generic mineral salt smell and the heat of his skin, just too far away to properly touch.</p><p>There’s a knock at the door before they can get any further. Sheppard breaks away with a whine, resting their foreheads together.</p><p>“Do you have to get that?” Rodney asks, thinking about how convenient it is that he’s already in a bed, half undressed. Thinking how hot Sheppard looks, how much he does want to know him, if it includes bad taste in music and snoring and personal shortcomings and all.</p><p>“It'll be our food,” Sheppard sighs. A quick squeeze of his hands and he’s off the bed, grabbing a hand gun from Rodney doesn’t care where and tucking it in the back of his waistband to answer the door.</p><p>Apparently it’s safe. Sheppard delivers a plate to Rodney in bed, already ticking so many qualities of a good boyfriend without, well, actually being in a relationship with Rodney.</p><p>As soon as he smells the food the bottom of his stomach drops and he can’t inhale the burger fast enough. Sheppard’s only halfway through his when the phone rings and he gets up to answer it.</p><p>The look on his face is grave. “They’ve found us. We’ve got to move.”</p><p>“Again? Why can’t we catch a break?” Rodney whines, but scrambles for his jeans and shoes, remembering to shove the code in his back pocket.</p><p>He stops to grab a shirt and Rodney belatedly realises he’s picked up what’s left of Sheppard’s—sporting a bullet hole and too small to be comfortable on him. There’s no time to stop and swap though, so he just tugs on the robe again as they sneak out the fire exit towards their stolen vehicle. Luckily this place has two parking lots.</p><p>Once they’re a safe distance away, Rodney has a chance to actually look at Sheppard. The shirt is rather large on him, and <em>cat-astrophic</em> is an unfairly adorable look. It makes Rodney’s stomach flutter in a way he’s not sure he wants to examine, because if he does he’ll see the hundred ways this can and will end badly.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>“Hey.” Sheppard’s voice rouses him from where he’s examining the code. It makes sense now that he’s had more time to consider it. It’s related to the Borg-like schematics he saw, the implants that would link with the FBI or CSIS or whoever’s mainframe. This goes deeper than strengthening Canadian or American firewalls.</p><p>“Hey, Arthur Dent.”</p><p>That catches Rodney’s attention. “You know Hitchhiker’s Guide?”</p><p>Sheppard gives him an annoyed look. “We’re almost there.”</p><p>They drive through a bumpy forest path, blithely ignoring the signs clearly indicating that only rangers are allowed past this point. They drive up to a pleasant looking wooden home, just a bit too large to be a cottage, with a clearing behind it.</p><p>A tall man with impressive dreads and bare arms stands on the porch next to a slightly smaller woman who is dressed more appropriately for the cold weather. The shotgun she points at their car spells danger.</p><p>Stopping a short distance away, John leaves the car, hands in the air.</p><p>“Teyla, Ronon, it’s me!”</p><p>The woman lowers the gun. She grins and jogs towards Sheppard. Out the window he watches them touch foreheads. The cold from the open door bites into his skin, so he gets out as well. The man, Ronon, he guesses, has joined then and is giving Sheppard a tight hug, lifting him off the ground.</p><p>“And who is this?” Teyla asks, smiling at Rodney.</p><p>“That’s McKay. I got him wrapped up in this mess, so—”</p><p>Teyla frowns at Sheppard with deep disapproval. Rodney hopes she’ll never use that expression on him.</p><p>“Accidentally!” Sheppard insists, nasal whine overriding his otherwise deep voice.</p><p>“Well, it’s nice to meet you,” Teyla says diplomatically.</p><p>Ronon grunts his agreement. “Hi.”</p><p>“Hi. Can we get in the house?” Rodney asks, blowing hot air onto his fingers in a futile effort to feel warmer.</p><p>Sheppard doesn’t look too happy in just a t-shirt either. “Good idea,” he says and motions for them all to go in front. He parks the car as Rodney is welcomed into a cosily decorated and very warm living room.</p><p>“I will bring you something more appropriate,” Teyla says, pursing her lips at his now muddy robe.</p><p>Ronon calls after her, “None of my favourite things!”</p><p>“So,” Rodney says, gingerly sitting down on a couch while Ronon perches on an armrest. “How do you know Sheppard?”</p><p>“Work,” Ronon smiles a predator’s smile. “You?”</p><p>He means to say something vague and cool like Ronon had, or perhaps just less embarrassing than what does come out, which is, “I kissed him on an airplane and now the government won’t stop trying to kill me.”</p><p>Ronon looks more amused than freaked out, and asks. "With tongue?"</p><p>"What are we, thirteen?" Rodney grumbles, but Sheppard returns before he can muster the silver tongued rebuttal that is just out of his reach.</p><p>“So, is Radek here?” Sheppard asks.</p><p>“He’s with his pigeons,” Ronon says, expression shifting to a mix of disinterest and annoyance. “He still won’t let me eat any of them.”</p><p>“You should not threaten to cook them so much,” Teyla admonishes. She hands Rodney a soft shirt and a sweatshirt, dark green with a fleece lining.</p><p>“Aw, it was a good look on you,” Ronon teases as Sheppard pulls on a black fleece, hiding Rodney’s shirt. It fits him well enough that it has to actually be his.</p><p>Sheppard waves him off, feigning to tickle Ronon in what Rodney thinks must count as affection between them. The three of them fit together like a family, bound by loyalty and enjoying a comfort and ease around each other that Rodney has only ever experienced with Jeannie, but that was long ago when they were children.</p><p>Teyla however is looking between him and Sheppard, something considering in her eyes.</p><p>“So, how did you know to come here?” Rodney asks, avoiding Teyla’s gaze.</p><p>Sheppard smiles wide. “Chewie,” he says, pointing to Ronon. “Because he’s so… muscular.” Rodney remembers the drawings.</p><p>“Kirk,” Ronon replies. “Because he’s such a geek.”</p><p>Sheppard scowls. “Come meet Zelenka.” Ronon and Teyla laugh as Sheppard leads him out the back to a wide porch. A figure is tending to pigeons in a hutch that stands alongside stacked piles of firewood at the back of the house.</p><p>“Radek,” Sheppard says sarcastically, “Thanks for waiting.”</p><p>“You were late, královna dramatu,” Zelenka calls as they approach, closing the door of the hutch. “What was I supposed to do, sit there and wait for them to come shoot me?”</p><p>Sheppard looks ready to protest, but now that they're standing almost toe to toe, Rodney suddenly realises why the man’s name had sounded so familiar.</p><p>“You!” Zelenka points at Rodney. He’s a short man with hair like Einstein and round glasses that make his squint appear frightening. The very same man whose presentation Rodney had got on stage and interrupted at a conference a few years ago.</p><p>“Ah,” Rodney has faced  would-be assassins, Carter after blowing up half of his lab, and said lab when the vending machine was empty. He can do this. “If you’re still mad about—”</p><p>“Still mad?!” Zelenka is wagging his finger now. “You were right about the integrals but you should not have interrupted me! Especially since it was about the presentation before mine!”</p><p>It is at this exact moment that Teyla and Ronon choose to join them. Why can’t they be doing this inside where it’s warm?</p><p>“I—” and Rodney forces himself to take a breath. He wasn’t wrong about the integrals and their implications for the creation of artificial wormholes, but it hadn’t been his moment. Part of coming out here to reconnect with Jeannie, however chaotically that’s been going, is to confront the less than wise decisions of his past. He doesn’t want to be alone; to have to fight his way through life as an island. And part of that is learning how to be better with other people. “I’m sorry.” </p><p>It costs him to say that. “I fixed your code, by the way.” He holds out the paper scraps. “I had some help, but… ” he gestures with the pages, but Zelenka won’t take them.</p><p>Sheppard frowns at him. “Who?”</p><p>“Jeannie.”</p><p>Now it’s Teyla’s turn to look confused. “Who is Jeannie?”</p><p>“My sister, who I should be helping prepare for her wedding!” He tries to press the pages into Zelenka’s hands but he scuttles back a few steps, opening a different door on the hutch and pulling a pigeon out. For a brief moment Rodney imagines he's going to command it to attack him.</p><p>“I want nothing more to do with that zatracený code!”</p><p>Sheppard sighs. “This is all you’ve been working on, you said it was going to solve the problem of—”</p><p>“No!” Zelenka fixes Sheppard with a glare. “I’ve decided I am done with this business and people wanting to kill me. I am a physicist first, how I got wrapped up in writing this code is just—” he breaks off into a string of Czech. From the angry tone, Rodney thinks it has to be mostly curses. And from Sheppard’s tired look, he’s used to it.</p><p>“Okay, but it exists now. And McKay <em>fixed</em> it.”</p><p>Rodney thinks he hears a bit of admiration in Sheppard’s voice, but his expression is a pokerface of persuasion. Sheppard’s faith in him feels good, warm and solid like Sheppard’s hands on his knees had been when he’d talked him through his panic attack.</p><p>“Absolutely not,” Zelenka says, holding the pigeon by its legs, looking particularly eccentric in combination with the five layers of fleece he's wearing. Despite the imperviousness to cold his being Canadian should bestow him, Rodney’s nose and fingertips are slowly going numb. If they stay out here much longer, his ass will be the next thing to freeze. Maybe Zelenka has the right idea, and getting out is the smart move, but Rodney likes a lot of things about his life.</p><p>“So, what about the code? And Michael?” Sheppard asks, tinged with desperation.</p><p>“When I said I wanted out I meant it. I would love to publish under another name someday, but right now my pigeons need me.”</p><p>“You want to give up a career in science to become a—a—pigeon farmer?” Rodney asks, unimpressed. Forget the code, and forget Zelenka’s impressive paper on the potential of Lorentzian manifolds—this man is an idiot. Giving up his career for pigeons… Rodney would have to be mad to sacrifice his position at NASA.</p><p>He looks at Sheppard, who has given up things Rodney doesn’t even know about for a small, angry Czech physicist because he thought it was the right thing to do. Sheppard, who’ll have to spend the rest of his life running because of it.</p><p>Sheppard catches his eye, and in that moment Rodney feels quite mad, hearing his own blood rush in his ears and feeling the ghost of Sheppard’s kiss on his lips.</p><p>Zelenka sighs. “It’s not called pigeon farming, but essentially yes.”</p><p>“The government will not stop hunting you,” Teyla points out.</p><p>“Then I’ll move!” Zelenka grumbles, soothing the pigeon with his free hand and making cooing noises at it.</p><p>Rodney can feel the frustration coming off all three of them; can feel the oncoming stubborn stalemate. The idea hits him all once, his brain doing what it does best: finding a solution to a problem.</p><p>“What if we could get them to stop hunting you?” Rodney says. “Use the code to break in, but only alter a few details so they won’t know they’ve been hacked and erase the problem at the source?”</p><p>“There are only a small number who know the truth,” Teyla says, considering.</p><p>Sheppard chimes in. “And if we give ourselves new identities, then we have a chance at keeping our lives.”</p><p>Rodney bounces on his heels.  “It’s a plan then.” The hope in the air is exhilarating.</p><p>“All we have to do is hack the Pentagon,” Sheppard licks his lips, concentration and strategy written all over his frown.</p><p>“Easy, we just need to get access to the government net and we’re in.”</p><p>“We’re in?” Ronon asks, looking at Sheppard for guidance.</p><p>“Yes, it’s easy, I’ve done it before,” Rodney waves his hand. “Look, can we go in now? I’m cold.”</p><p>“You hacked the Pentagon.” Teyla raises an eyebrow.</p><p>Rodney is already heading for the back door, managing to turn the handle despite how numb his fingers are. “Misspent youth.”</p><p>Inside there’s tea and plans. They pick a secret government facility that’s close but reasonably small and forgotten. Ronon argues that they can take the guards that will be there, while Teyla and Sheppard err on the side of caution. The crate of flashbangs, mags, who knows what else that Ronon gets Teyla to help him carry up from the basement puts Sheppard’s fears to rest, while Rodney and Zelenka share a concerned look. Then there’s proper food and walkie talkie calibrations and the like.</p><p>“So, you got everything?” Ronon asks Rodney, offering him a second handgun. (He already has one in a shoulder holster courtesy of Teyla.)</p><p>He pats his breast pocket (another loaned jacket) where the corrected code is safe. “Yup. Locked and loaded.”</p><p>Ronon rolls his eyes but gives his shoulder an affectionate squeeze before going to join Teyla and Zelenka. They’re splitting into two vehicles in case they run into trouble.</p><p>“You want us to take the Beetle?” Sheppard asks, scowling deeply at Teyla. With a matching tactical vest and thigh holster, he looks downright dangerous and dreamy.</p><p>“They are more likely to follow the stolen vehicle,” Teyla argues, “And it would be easier for you to rescue us than we you.”</p><p>Sheppard nods unhappily. “I still hate Volkswagens.”</p><p>“Why?” Rodney asks.</p><p>“On principle.” Sheppard’s look is dark. What kind of near brush with death must he have experienced in one to be so apprehensive of them even now? “I’ll tell you when all this is done.”</p><p>“You mean, you don’t want to go separate ways afterwards, to be safe?” Rodney asks, silently thanking Teyla for choosing that moment to subtly slip away.</p><p>“Well, with your plan we won’t have to, right?” His tone is soft, hopeful.</p><p>“No we won’t.” Relief washes over Rodney in a wave.</p><p>“So…” Sheppard licks his lips, “I’m not sorry I kissed you either.”</p><p>“Sheppard, we have to get going!” An annoyed Zelenka calls, his head sticking out of the window of the Ford Focus.</p><p>The moment is gone, but the vulnerable look Sheppard sends his way before climbing into the Beetle is promise enough. Rodney rushes to get in the other side.</p><p>“Good luck,” Teyla calls, and with that they’re off.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>To say their plan does not go smoothly is an understatement. It was a good plan, Rodney supposes, but there was no way they could have forseen the trap the FBI had sprung on them on the highway. All the cars on the road with them had suddenly formed roadblocks and boxed them in. At least he can take some comfort in the fact that Zelenka, Teyla and Ronon had gotten away, the gold car smashing through a barrier and slipping off onto a side road. Meanwhile Sheppard had kicked up a lot of noise to help make sure they got away. He’d motioned for Rodney to run too, but neither of them had been fast enough.</p><p>Luckily Rodney had the foresight to shove the paper with the code into his mouth before they’d cuffed him. It had been gross, waiting for it to dissolve on his tongue and covertly swallowing the mush, but at least this way it’s safe from enemy hands. Unlike Rodney himself who is stuck in a small room miles and miles under the surface of the earth.</p><p>A tall man with long hair enters. “Hello, Doctor McKay.”</p><p>“I don’t suppose you’re here to tell me I’m free to go and this was all just a big mix up about a parking ticket?” Rodney asks. He doesn’t even own a car.</p><p>“No. The reason you are here is much more serious.”</p><p>“Can you at least undo these?” He shakes the cuffs around his wrists.</p><p>“Fine.” Another man enters. “You know my associate, Michael.”</p><p>Unfortunately, Rodney does. Michael Kenmore leans across the table to undo the cuffs, smirking.</p><p>“Safe and secure, huh?” Rodney hisses at him, wishing he could knock him out again. Both of them, in fact.</p><p>The tall man continues. “You may call me Todd.”</p><p>Rodney can think of a few other things he <em>may</em> call him. “Todd, lovely. Look, I’d like a lawyer, I’d like to call the Canadian embassy, and—”</p><p>“Doctor McKay,” Todd says, growling this time. “This has all been cleared with CSIS.”</p><p>“—something to eat.” Rodney finishes, fuming, letting his anger bolster him. He’s been sat here for what feels like hours.</p><p>Kenmore smirks at him. “No. You are here at our will. You will do as we say.”</p><p>Todd rolls his eyes. “Go get him some water.”</p><p>Kenmore looks pissed, but goes anyway. “We are an international subdivision heading up the WRAAITH initiative.”</p><p>“Wraith? I’ve never heard of you.” Rodney crosses his arms.</p><p>“It stands for W-class Replicator Anatomical Advancement Implanted Technological Hardware. Basically… we make faster and stronger soldiers using technology.”</p><p>The blueprints Zelenka hadn’t quite managed to destroy. Rodney tries very hard to maintain a pokerface as strong as Sheppard’s. “That sounds ridiculous. What, are we in a science fiction movie? Are you going to <em>assimilate</em> me?” His laugh sounds too brittle to be fully convincing, even to his own ears.</p><p>“Sheppard stole a very important piece of coding from us. It serves to keep us safe.”</p><p>“I don’t know anything about this.” Fear begins to trickle down his spine.</p><p>Kenmore returns with a paper cup and a tablet. “Well, let us enlighten you then.”</p><p>Rodney decides against the water since it’s not bottled. Not that they couldn’t have tampered with either option; having the technology to build and implant impressive super soldier borg implants (way to go for the 21st century), it’s not unthinkable they could reseal a bottle of water. Still. Instead of freezing as soon as things get dangerous, he wants to be brave this time.</p><p>Todd takes the tablet, long fingernails that remind Rodney uncomfortably of claws tapping against the screen. “Watch this.” He turns the tablet around, and Rodney sees himself just two days ago, struggling up an escalator with his suitcase in Las Vegas.</p><p>He sees a familiar messy head of hair approach his miniature self on the screen and Rodney wants to reach out to touch, even though Sheppard is only a small blob of pixels on a screen. They’d herded him into a room just down the hall. Whatever they’re putting Sheppard through can’t be nearly as pleasant as the luxury he’s enjoying.</p><p>The tablet must be hooked into the network, possessing a more direct line of access than the terminal he would be hacking right now if their plan had worked. It’s right in front of him, and he can’t do a thing. He doubts there’s a way he can get the drop on Kenmore again, let alone Todd. His fingers clench into fists.</p><p>“Watch closely Doctor McKay,” Todd says, using a finger to indicate the screen.</p><p>Rodney watches Sheppard’s hand slip into the front pocket of his suitcase as he helps pick up the brochures. <em>What?</em></p><p>“And again, Doctor.”</p><p>This time the clip is post-security, where past Rodney is wrestling with hand cream. He watches the collision. Sheppard’s hand slips into the front of his suitcase, something flashing between his fingers.</p><p>“He used you to get a very important USB through security.”</p><p>Rodney may already be miles and miles beneath the Earth’s surface, but right now he wishes it would swallow him all the way to its molten lava core. “He was using me?” He asks, not wanting to believe it. There was the toothpaste, the literally coming back and risking his life for him, the kissing and… that look at Teyla and Ronon’s house.</p><p>It can’t be true.</p><p>“He’s been trained to be ruthless,” Kenmore says, his cruel smile suddenly turning sympathetic. His right eye glints oddly in the harsh lighting. Has he been augmented? Has Todd? “You’re not the first mark to be drawn in by his charm.”</p><p>A mark. That can’t be all Rodney is to Sheppard.</p><p>“We’ve had trouble bringing Major Sheppard in because a civilian was involved,” Todd explains. “The agency is… fussy about the amount of force we’re allowed to use in such cases.”</p><p>“So I was… convenient,” Rodney deduces. He feels rotten and hollowed out. The stew he’d had a few hours ago churns in his stomach.</p><p>“So it seems,” Kenmore says. “We at WRAAITH would like to offer our sincerest apologies for the hurt our rogue agent had caused.”</p><p>“He’s one of you?”</p><p>Todd blinks at him slowly. If Rodney thinks Sheppard’s pokerface is impressive, this guy’s is on a whole other level.</p><p>“With the robot implants and stuff,” Rodney clarifies.</p><p>“We only need one thing from you, then you’re free to go.” Todd sounds distant and unreal.</p><p>Rodney had thought he’d been reading the signs right. Can he really have imagined the heat in Sheppard’s eyes in the hotel room? He’s used to being convenient and otherwise overlooked, at least in matters of the heart. No one has ever entered his life quite so chaotically, or been so fiercely protective of him in the way that Sheppard is. Can Rodney have let himself read too much into it?</p><p>Can he really trust himself to be at all objective when he knows how lonely he is?</p><p>“Where is the USB?” Kenmore asks gently.</p><p>“Nowhere you’ll find it,” Rodney says, weaker than before. He supposes he’d been an obvious mark, overeager and easy. In what real world does a hot guy walk into his life and take a bullet for him because he likes him?</p><p>Todd stares him down. “Just tell us, and we can have you on a flight back to Ottawa within the hour.”</p><p>He’d get to see Jeannie. He’d make it back in time for the wedding and not fuck up again.</p><p>“Here,” Todd says, showing him the tablet, this time with the sound on.</p><p>It’s Sheppard in a near identical cell. “…you just don’t get it, do you Koyla?”</p><p>“Get what, John?” The man sitting opposite him asks.</p><p>“That this whole operation is corrupt. So why not steal the code to make a buck?” Blood dribbles down his chin, but Sheppard seems unconcerned.</p><p>The screen turns dark and Rodney feels his heart slowly flicker out inside his chest as well. He’d been a human shield for Sheppard so he could get away and sell the drive. All this time Rodney’s been thinking of him as someone who does the decent thing, someone who will brave danger for what he believes is right, but Sheppard’s been playing the same game as everyone else all along. He doesn’t actually care about the code or its possible consequences.</p><p>“We just need a location and the code will be safe,” Todd presses.</p><p>“The USB is hidden in a lock box,” Rodney says and hates himself for it. He writes down the address of a train station on the tablet. That had been their one stop, their last safeguard, because Rodney had the hard copy and Zelenka had explained the rest, so there’d be no trouble executing the code between the two of them.</p><p>Kenmore is out of the room like a shot.</p><p>“Thank you, Doctor McKay,” Todd smiles, his canines weirdly sharp.</p><p>Willing his body to stand instead of curling up in a ball on the floor like he actually wants to, Rodney gathers his strength to make sure his voice doesn’t quiver. “I want to go, now.”</p><p>“Of course, of course.” Todd waves his hand and two men in military uniforms enter. Are they initiates of WRAAITH augmentation, too? Perhaps it doesn’t matter anymore since this nightmare is finally about to be over. “Lieutenants Ford and Lorne will see you out.”</p><p>Rodney stuffs his hands deep into the pockets of his borrowed jacket, trying to wrap the fabric tighter around himself, but instead of feeling safer he’s reminded of how he’s just betrayed his brand new friends. The two men flank him as they walk towards an elevator, his path back up to sunlight and a cloudless sky.</p><p>They have to pass another group on their way out. One of them is Sheppard.</p><p>“I thought you actually cared,” Rodney accuses him, feeling as if he’s admitting defeat. Despite knowing he was just a mark to be played, he still wants to reach out to Sheppard. He’s still hoping for something, though what he doesn’t know.</p><p>“Yeah, well,” Sheppard barely looks at him, jaw tight. It’s the antithesis of the warm look he’d given Rodney as they’d been going through security.</p><p>“Everything happens for a reason, right?” The hurt Rodney feels claws its way out of his throat and attaches itself to his words, unravelling him from the inside out. Belatedly, he knows he cares for Sheppard—or who he’d thought Sheppard was.</p><p>“Enough of this,” Koyla says, using his iron grip on Sheppard’s cuffs to push them apart. “We’ll get the next one.”</p><p>Sheppard looks from Rodney down at where his laces spill from his boots, untied and sloppy. “I thought it would hurt less.”</p><p>A hand around his bicep—Ford—and Rodney is pushed into the elevator, the doors closing before he can get one last look at Sheppard.</p><p>He tries again as he’s herded into a helicopter at the far end of the military base, only catching a glimpse of dark brown hair against the harsh sunlight as Sheppard is escorted towards a lone car.</p><p>Ford and Lorne get him secured in the back so that when the helicopter shudders and shakes with the force of the explosion, all he does is tug against the tights bonds of his safety harness. Craning his neck, Rodney sees the flaming husk of the vehicle.</p><p>“You alright, Doc?” Ford asks over the radio.</p><p>Anything he might say sits his stomach like ash.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>When Ford drops him off he’s uncharacteristically quiet. Jeannie is careful around him, not asking questions beyond <em>are you okay</em> and <em>do you want some tea</em>. The NDAs that he, Jeannie and a sleepy Mark are made to sign shelf the issue until after the wedding. He almost expects them to try and make Madison sign one, too, never mind that Ford would have to hold the pen for her. In the end Ford and Lorne leave, arguing about where to stop for food on the drive back to base. Rodney doesn’t touch the tea, but appreciates the biscuits and the ride back to the hotel.</p><p>Seeing Jeannie lifts the fog from his mind. He may have handed over the code, but that doesn’t leave him powerless.</p><p>Nipping out to a 24hour coffee shop for their harder to trace Wi-Fi, trying his best to make sure he isn’t followed, Rodney sips hot coffee and boots his laptop up. Ignoring the notifications for urgent emails and memos from the lab, he uses his NASA login to round a few corners and access the governmental intelligence network.</p><p>It hurts to think about, even though Sheppard had lied. In fact, it hurts more because he had lied. Rodney hopes Zelenka, Teyla and Ronon are still out there somewhere. He wonders if they know about Sheppard. Rodney tries not to think about that, still feeling the heat of the explosion when he closes his eyes to steady himself.</p><p>Recreating the parts of the code he needs to help him break in isn’t hard. Scientific fact and the logic of computer language etch themselves in the wet clay of his memory easily. His laptop has the same relevant credentials as any official net computer. Using a trojan of his own design to anonymously piggyback into the mainframe, he executes their plan, halfway through creating an identity for Sheppard before he realises what he’s doing. Part of him doesn’t want to let go, so he lets himself finish writing a ghost into existence. It’s not like anyone will notice. They’re hidden and safe now, identities reshuffled into an anonymity more powerful than misdirection and running. Using his burner phone for the last time, he texts Zelenka a link to an email address where he’s sent the details of their new lives—encrypted of course—and wishes him luck.</p><p>The rest of the code swims in his mind. Sheppard had called it a defence, but a defence against what? The code itself rewrites protective layers, changing the input of control. As far as he knows there is no AI hooked up to the Canadian or American governmental spy network, penetrating all subsequently linked systems. No, it’s something else, something—</p><p>It hits him in a flash and he almost spills his coffee down his front. The WRAAITH implants are mechanical in nature, but the designs had included one for the brain. He doesn’t know if the technology had originally been intended to be a next generation prosthesis or to create a super soldier or what, but the military got hold of the technology and added in a remote control. Zelenka’s code is supposed to be the final piece of the puzzle, creating the ability to remotely shut them down, the project disguised as an emergency contingency. Rodney doesn’t doubt it would quickly become a casual means of control.</p><p>Fingers flying across his keyboard, he finds out the chip in Kenmore’s head had originally been a temporary attempt to help him with addiction, and reading between the lines, realises that he was an unwilling test subject. Finally he sees the beauty of Zelenka’s code: it does create a watertight means of control, but for the owner of the implants, not the military. There hadn’t been mistakes, Rodney and Jeannie had just figured out the last piece of the puzzle Zelenka had almost completed. Instead of operating only in response to an outside attempt to hack the implants, it would be possible for the owner to activate the code and protect themselves. It isn’t hard to upload the completed code into the network. At least it’s there, ready to download even if he currently has no way to let the WRAAITH initiates know how.</p><p>He dumps the burner phone on his way back to the hotel.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Rodney doesn’t need to make an effort to smile as he gives Jeannie away, and is happy to let her best friend take over the speech duties he’d otherwise be saddled with. He’s glad he’d bought a new shirt at the tailors, the old one would have flashed the dressings over his wrists at every opportunity. The rest of the time smiling is too much, so he busies himself with poking at the buffet or examining the flower arrangements from a safe distance. They’re beautiful, the dress she’s picked is beautiful, and altogether the atmosphere is joyous.</p><p>He dances with her, remembering how she had first helped him learn how to waltz. They’d been teenagers. She’d followed him after he left a dance class close to tears. It had been for the wedding of a distant relative who definitely isn’t here now and whose wedding Rodney doesn’t remember. But he remembers how Jeannie led him through the steps, and in her wisdom made him follow first so that he could understand how to lead well. Somewhere along the way he’d forgotten that; forgotten the memories of how after he’d raced to learn new things, he’d come home to share them with someone equally excited about how wonderful the universe can be.</p><p>“I’m so glad you came,” Jeannie says, and lets herself be whisked away by Mark, jubilant smile on her face.</p><p>“Me too.”</p><p>No one tries to get him to dance as he makes his way off the floor and towards the buffet again. Grabbing a plate of cupcakes he withdraws out of the hotel ballroom where the reception is being held and up to his room. He can return in a bit, when Jeannie is done making the rounds and being congratulated and dancing the Macarena and the like.</p><p>Alone on his bed he starts in on the first cupcake, trying to shut his own brain up. It’s showing him a picture of what it would be like if Sheppard were here. He’d be wearing a tux, not clean shaven, but ready to hold Rodney’s hand or dance or make fun of other guests covertly as they stayed at their table, enjoying the open bar.</p><p>He turns on the TV. Cupcakes two and three don’t help much either. At least the Sci Fi channel is showing Star Trek. On screen, Captain Kirk is talking to Edith Keeler, telling her that in the future a novelist will recommend <em>let me help</em> over <em>I love you</em>. Rodney’s glad as the <em>all weekend, classics only! You ranked them, we</em><em>’ll play them!</em> marathon continues with Mirror, Mirror.</p><p>He’s empathising with Chekov as he silently screams in the agony booth when there’s a knock at the door. Figuring it could be Jeannie, he goes to answer.</p><p>Instead he’s face to face with Teyla, Ronon and Zelenka.</p><p>“What are you doing here?” He hisses, opening the door so they can come into the room and crowd onto the bed. He’s glad he didn’t take his pants off in accordance with his usual moping around protocol.</p><p>“I got your text—you  escaped!” Zelenka exclaims.</p><p>“Where’s Sheppard?” Ronon asks, grabbing a cupcake.</p><p>“He got captured, too. He was going to sell the code.” This time he feels angry, the betrayal that’s sunk into him like lead suddenly bubbling, hot and caustic, to the surface. “That lying, stupidly handsome asshole! Selling this kind of technology to the highest bidder. Doesn’t he have a moral backbone?”</p><p>All three of them give him disbelieving looks.</p><p>Teyla speaks up first. “John would not do that. He is an honest man.”</p><p>“Yeah, well,” Rodney flounders and sits down on the desk chair. “It seems I was very wrong about him. The power he was going to give to the highest bidder…” That Rodney had given to WRAAITH, if they could fix the code.</p><p>“No,” Teyla shakes her head. “There must be another explanation.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Ronon agrees. Zelenka nods his head.</p><p>“I heard him myself! I watched him tell Koyla, he didn’t deny it.”</p><p>“Koyla?” Teyla asks, sharing a worried look with Ronon.</p><p>“So how did you get away?” Ronon asks.</p><p>“I told them where the USB was,” Rodney confesses. “I’m sorry.”</p><p>Zelenka waves his hand. “It will not work anyway, they can have it.”</p><p>“Yet!” Rodney cries. Do none of them understand? “They’ll work it out and zombify those poor souls who have implants, creating some kind of robot army!”</p><p>“What?” Ronon stops mid-cupcake.</p><p>Rodney turns on Zelenka. “Didn’t you tell them what you were protecting?”</p><p>“No…” Zelenka turns to them. “What he says is correct. Michael, that’s what happened to him. The change. They forced implants on him…”</p><p>Rodney tunes him out, mind running a hundred kilometers an hour but not going anywhere in particular. He’d dumped the fixed code into the systems, so technically it could be downloaded and activated if only they could get through to the soldiers who had been experimented on. It would elegantly attach itself to where the military had left space for it, just not how they had intended. Ideally, they’d blow the whole project to hell. The military would try again, rebuilding the technology from scratch, but that doesn’t make any damage they can do meaningless. Especially not for those who would be certain in their own autonomy and bodies again.</p><p>“We must rescue John and help them,” Teyla decides, her firm tone of voice drawing Rodney out of his thoughts.</p><p>“I agree we need to help them—but help Sheppard?”</p><p>“Was it not by divulging the location of the USB that you were able to attend the festivities downstairs?” Teyla enunciates strongly.</p><p>“Yes,” Rodney says, feeling a fresh burst of irritation coming on. Why is she speaking to him as if he’s being particularly dense?</p><p>“And you gave up the location because you believed he had dishonourable intentions?” Teyla asks.</p><p>“I—yeah.”</p><p>“Perhaps Sheppard lied so that they would release you.”</p><p>“Oh.” The tiny sound doesn’t fully encapsulate how the realisation feels.</p><p>Sheppard gave himself and Rodney’s good opinion of him up so that he could try to mend his relationship with Jeannie. His heart feels both compressed to the size of an AA battery and expanded to the size of a red supergiant star.</p><p>Teyla’s hard gaze softens.</p><p>“They hate it when one of their own gets away,” Ronon scoffs.</p><p>“He’s a… robot?” Rodney scrambles for a better word.</p><p>“No,” Zelenka answers. “But he was on their list of possibles.”</p><p>Rodney feels really, really stupid. “He made the deal up so that I would think he betrayed me and now they’re going to get him, too.” Sheppard had done what heroes do, had sacrificed himself and is now paying the price. And he did it for Rodney.</p><p>“It got you here, didn’t it?” Ronon says, shrugging casually.</p><p>“Where we are now all together and can mount a rescue,” Teyla clarifies.</p><p>“We don’t know where he is, or if he’s even alive,” Rodney despairs, then explains about the explosion.</p><p>“Diversion,” Ronon says, dismissing the issue with a single word.</p><p>“Do you have a computer I can use?” Zelenka asks. Rodney hands him his laptop. “Excellent. I’ll see if I can see where they’re holding him.”</p><p>And just like that, the three get to work, bouncing ideas off each other and confirming details. Rodney joins in, accepted into the rhythms of their discussion as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. It’s nothing like the harsh competitiveness in the labs that always wins out, no matter how often Elizabeth or Carter try to get them to become a more harmonious team.</p><p>But now Rodney is met with wills as strong as his, feeling useful and vital in a way he never has before. There’s not much science, but they trust him when he says he knows how to shoot. They change vehicles, Teyla and Ronon have weapons, and between the four of them they come up with a plan—a not very good plan, a this-could-easily-end-very-badly plan, but it’s their best shot to save Sheppard and stop the WRAAITH initiative in its tracks.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The worst part of the plan is definitely the part where Rodney gets captured again. It’s voluntary this time, but the cuffs sting  where his wrists are still sore beneath the thin bandages. Meanwhile, Zelenka, Teyla and Ronon are breaking into the secure building where the augmented soldiers are being held so that Zelenka can show them how to download and activate the code. When they’re done they’ll come help Rodney, who’ll be working from the inside to make their job easier.</p><p>What none of them anticipated is that Todd skips the niceties and wants to immediately inject him with a truth drug. Any chance to bypass the door lock and search for Sheppard disappears.</p><p>“This will eliminate all the bullshit,” Todd says, motioning for a brown haired man to inject him.</p><p>“Sorry lad, it’ll just be a tiny sting,” the man tells him in a Scottish accent.</p><p>Rodney tugs against his restraints, chest heaving. “Fuck. You.”</p><p>Todd laughs.</p><p>How come he’s getting drugged <em>again</em>?</p><p>It’s not like last time. Instead of a fuzziness, everything feels suddenly clearer, more important. The room’s brighter, and restraints don’t bother him anymore. He feels an overpowering urge to say all the things swirling around inside his head. It’s worse than when he’s angry or scared, but somehow he’s not worried about it. He thinks he should be, but since he’s not:</p><p>“Todd, you look like an extra from the Matrix, and WRAAITH sucks.”</p><p>“Ah, it seems to have kicked in,” the Scottish man says.</p><p>“Good,” Todd says, giving Rodney an unimpressed look. “Now. Why did you contact the F.B.I. and tell them you had given us a phony code?”</p><p>“It’s not fake,” Rodney rolls his eyes. Being smarter than everyone else in the room has its disadvantages. Only Carter has ever been able to keep up with him. Zelenka manages alright, too, he supposes, and then there’s Sheppard. Sexy, slightly weird Sheppard.</p><p>“What is it then?”</p><p>This fool. “Incomplete.”</p><p>“What!?” Todd roars. The Scottish man makes a strategic retreat out the door.</p><p>“I had to fix it. I think that really impressed him, you know.”</p><p>“What? Who?” Todd frowns.</p><p>“He sees me as I am. And he got me to Jeannie’s wedding on time. I don’t have to feel like I’m too much around him.”</p><p>Todd looks seconds away from violence. Huh.</p><p>“He also showed me how great fries taste with shakes; how come I’ve never thought of that before?” Sheppard is a genius. And he can keep up with Rodney. And he’s so strong, and handsome, and a great kisser, and—</p><p>“The code,” Todd demands, ripping him away from thinking pleasant thoughts about Sheppard. “You fixed it?”</p><p>“Oh yeah. I’m a genius, genuinely brilliant. They’re not going to be able to put a woman on Mars without me,” Rodney sighs happily. He hopes Elizabeth gets a shot at it, she’s the best of all the astronauts. If not she’ll be the boss of NASA, or change the world, he’s sure of it.</p><p>Suddenly, Todd is looming over him. He’s holding a knife, isn’t that quaint. “Hey, what are you—”</p><p>Todd cuts his restraints, grabbing his arm and manoeuvring him into the hall. “You’re going to fix our code for us, Doctor McKay.”</p><p>“I—” Rodney tries to pull away. “I’m not going to help you control people like that!”</p><p>He fights, but to no avail.</p><p>“Todd, is that a civilian?” An authoritative voice belonging to a bald man in a jumpsuit asks.</p><p>“Stay out of it, Caldwell,” Todd growls.</p><p>Using the distraction, Rodney drops his weight, driving his elbow firmly at Todd’s crotch as he goes. As Todd doubles over, Rodney uses his new position of sitting on the floor to grab the gun from Todd’s thigh holster. He slams the butt of it against Todd’s forehead, knocking him out cold.</p><p>“I’m just here to rescue my friend,” Rodney explains, pointing the gun at the bald man—Caldwell—as he stands. “I don’t want to hurt you but I need to find him.”</p><p>Caldwell holds his hands in the air, looking more like he’s indulging Rodney than out of fear. “Your friend?”</p><p>“John Sheppard. He just wanted to save some people. Tall, messy hair.”</p><p>Caldwell points down the hall with a finger.</p><p>“Are you going to sound the alarm?” Rodney asks.</p><p>Caldwell shrugs. “This is a top secret military facility. Of couse I am.”</p><p>Hoping to take him by surprise, Rodney rushes him, butt of the gun outstretched to knock him out.</p><p>Instead, Caldwell catches his arm. “What’s going on? I’m supposed to be picking up a delivery, but things here are very strange.”</p><p>“They’re trying to turn people into robots,” Rodney explains inaccurately.</p><p>Caldwell looks confused. “What?”</p><p>Being a genius is really, really hard sometimes. “I’ll send you an email.” Switching the gun to his other hand, he finishes knocking him out and rushes down the hall in the opposite direction.</p><p>Peering in through the small windows in the doors, he finds Sheppard in the third room. Finally.</p><p>“Rodney?” Sheppard looks stunned, and worse for wear, with fresh bruises and cuts on his face.</p><p>“I’m here to rescue you,” Rodney beams. “Come on.”</p><p>“How did you get here?” Sheppard asks, disbelief and joy warring on his face. Rodney wants it to only be happy emotions. They’re seeing each other again, isn’t that a great thing?</p><p>“Told them the code was fake.” He holds open the door. Sheppard doesn’t need freedom offered to him twice.</p><p>“Here,” he gives Sheppard his gun. Going back the way he came, Sheppard grabs Caldwell’s as well.</p><p>“What happened here?”</p><p>“I got lucky, that guy looked kind of mean,” Rodney confesses.</p><p>“And Todd?”</p><p>“He totally deserved that.” Rodney sends his unconscious body a glare for good measure. “We have an escape car all ready and everything.”</p><p>He and Sheppard sprint down the corridors together, everything going smoothly until they run into a couple of soldiers hunched over a clipboard. As soon as they spot Rodney and Sheppard, they’re drawing their weapons and shouting.</p><p>Sheppard pulls him back around the corner, whipping around to shoot rapidly.</p><p>The answering gunfire goes right past them. Sheppard’s face is intent as he presses Rodney back against the concrete wall. “Stay here. I’ll take care of them and then we can go.” He sticks his arm and head out around the corner to fire a few shots.</p><p>Having Sheppard pressed up against him feels good, but he wants his attention back. He knows Sheppard needs to take care of things but he’s just broken in a secret military base to rescue him.</p><p>“John,” Rodney whines.</p><p>Sheppard’s back with him in a second, looking worried. “Yeah?”</p><p>“You don’t seem very happy to see me.” If Sheppard really had done all those things for him, shouldn’t he be more happy to see Rodney? They’d kissed before, didn’t he at least want to do that again? The fear that he’s not good enough winds into his mind like a corkscrew.</p><p>Squinting at him, Sheppard asks. “Did they give you something?”</p><p>“Truth serum,” Rodney answers. “Feels weird.”</p><p>“You should hydrate,” Sheppard advises, then rounds the corner again and empties the mag of Caldwell’s gun. “Clear!”</p><p>When Sheppard moves around the corner, Rodney stays put. He’s come all this way to rescue Sheppard and… what? Does he have it all wrong again?</p><p>“McKay?” Sheppard calls, but Rodney barely moves. He should leave, he has his life to think about—ending WRAAITH, getting Elizabeth to Mars and creating the first man-made wormhole—but those things all feel so far away from him.</p><p>He can know it’s the drug as much as he likes, it still feels awful.</p><p>Suddenly strong hands grasp his arms—Sheppard.</p><p>“Rodney.” Sheppard hesitates, then kisses him.</p><p>Rodney kisses back, eager and messy. Sheppard has his hands around Rodney’s forearms, avoiding the bandages and keeping him pressed against the wall, kissing him thoroughly. It’s part precision, part messy heat, searing into him.</p><p>He rubs his cheek again Sheppard’s, loving the rasp of his stubble, loving the taste of his skin as he tongues at his neck. He wants to dot a million kisses on his neck. No, he wants to dot them in batches of prime numbers. Three kisses on his Adam’s apple, two in the dip between his collar bones, seven—</p><p>“McKay,” Sheppard moans. “We’ve got to move.”</p><p>In the distance, they hear an explosion.</p><p>“What the fuck?” Sheppard groans, gripping Rodney’s hand and dragging him through the corridors, only pausing to pick up the guns from the marines he’d incapacitated.</p><p>“That’s probably Teyla and Ronon.”</p><p>“You’re going after WRAAITH,” Sheppard grins, catching on.</p><p>Rodney preens. It’s a group effort, but he’d been important for every part. “Eleven o’clock.”</p><p>Sheppard shoots without looking and hits the soldier in her bullet proof vest, knocking her to the ground.</p><p>“We make a great team,” Rodney grins, running again.</p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p>In the elevator, he grabs Sheppard’s face, fully intending to kiss him again, but something in his eyes makes Rodney hesitate. He presses their foreheads together instead. “I’ll always come for you,” he whispers.</p><p>Strong hands grip his shoulders, and Rodney lets John hold him as tightly and as long as he wants.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Koyla is waiting for them by the vehicle he and Sheppard are supposed to escape in. All four tires are slashed.</p><p>“You’re never getting away John.” The slope of Koyla’s smile and the flash of his knife are equally cruel.</p><p>“I’ve had enough of your games,” Sheppard retorts.</p><p>Rodney doesn’t know what’s happened between him and Sheppard in the past. Sheppard is fast to shoot him in the stomach and again in the chest, grabbing Rodney’s hand as Koyla withdraws behind the car.</p><p>“I’ll get you, Sheppard.”</p><p>“No you won’t,” Sheppard mutters, and heads towards a lone motorbike.</p><p>Getting on, he tugs at Rodney’s hand with urgency, but Rodney remains rooted to the spot. “That thing’s a death trap!”</p><p>“Rodney,” Sheppard says, impatient. “They’re right behind us.”</p><p>He hears the sound of the klaxon, of yelling getting closer. “Okay, good point.”</p><p>Clambering onto Sheppard’s lap is hard, the seat not really being made for it.</p><p>“Uh, Rodney—” But distant gunfire starts up before Sheppard can tell him to sit behind him properly.</p><p>The motorbike shakes with energy beneath them, rippling through Rodney’s whole body as Sheppard guns the engine and flicks the stand up.</p><p>“Hold on tight,” Sheppard advises.</p><p>Rodney presses his face against Sheppard’s shoulder, momentarily overwhelmed by fear as they jerk forward, a bullet whizzing by his ear. Maybe they should go and see if they can share with the others, who are pulling out in front of them in a borrowed Jeep, but it’s too late now.</p><p>He holds on with all his might. They’re entangled with each other, not in a quantum sense, but quite literally in an equally real world of gravity and force, of cause and effect. The gunfire continues.</p><p>Adjusted to the feel of the bike, Rodney decides to do something about that. Sheppard always protects him, it’s his turn now. Sitting up, he grabs the guns Sheppard has stashed in his waistband, one for each hand.</p><p>Sheppard keeps his chin on Rodney’s shoulder to keep a clear line of sight and Rodney fires. He feels both precarious and powerful. Their attackers relent by the time he’s emptied them both.</p><p>“That was a very daring rescue.” Sheppard says, relaxing. “Thank you.”</p><p>Dropping the guns as they speed along the motorway, Rodney grins. He can feel Sheppard’s thanks unfurl as warmth in his chest, and pressing against his ass. They can’t reach the safe house and its proper bed soon enough.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Rodney finishes compiling all information on the WRAAITH project he and Zelenka have found, advocating for surveilling but leaving the now free WRAAITH soldiers alone, and sends it off to one Colonel Caldwell. It might help, it might not. Either way, he’s going to be keeping an eye on things from now on.</p><p>“Finished?” John asks, poking Rodney in the stomach with a foot. They’re laying at opposite ends of Rodney’s couch, sharing the space comfortably. It’s been a month, and so far Rodney’s hack job has held. They’ve been cautious and they haven’t had to run. John’s temporary stay at Rodney’s is slowly transmuting into a permanent one, traces of him evident all over the apartment. The blanket he’d got from Teyla on the armchair in the bedroom, the totally necessary toys he’d bought Rodney’s cat Einstein (or <em>Alby</em> as he’s heard John coo), the poster of a plane taped to the inside of the closet door, the rubber duck he’d bought to tease Rodney about his habit of falling asleep in the bath. Rodney had warned him that it would only get worse closer to the launch of the mission, but John had just kissed the tip of his nose and said <em>we</em><em>’ll be fine. Better than fine, we’ll be great. </em></p><p>Carter had wanted him back at the lab earlier than next week, but luckily all that leave he’d saved up had come in handy. They’d compromised on him working from home for a while, which his colleagues had been enthusiastic about. He doesn’t miss that insufferable lot either.</p><p>“All done.” He hits the enter key and sets his laptop aside.</p><p>Ronon and Teyla have gone back to… well, Rodney still isn’t sure exactly what they do. He’d learned that Teyla used to have a high up position in an Intelligence agency. Ronon has the same kind of training, which is how they had all met in the first place. When he’d asked when he and Sheppard would see them again, Teyla had just smiled at him in a beatific non-answer. Ronon had told John to enjoy his honeymoon and they’d left, catching a ride to the airport with Zelenka.</p><p>“This came in the mail.” John frisbees him an envelope.</p><p>Rodney sighs.</p><p>“What is it?” John needles.</p><p>“Another work thing. Black tie. It’s announcing the official crew of the first mission to Mars. I have to go, they’re naming Elizabeth captain of the expedition.”</p><p>“I’ve never seen inside NASA,” John muses, not appearing coy in the slightest as he looks up at Rodney through his lashes.</p><p>“You want to come as my date?” Rodney asks. He wonders how long it will be until he stops feeling surprised when John does things like this, making everything feel that bit more permanent. “You’ll need a suit.”</p><p>“Got to look my best on your arm,” John jokes, abandoning the Rubix cube he’d been working on. With the grace of a dancer, he changes position so he’s laying on top of Rodney, mischievous look on his face.</p><p>“It’ll mostly be boring,” Rodney warns, arms automatically circling John’s waist.</p><p>“You’ll be there. And there’s free food, right?” John pokes him in the belly. Cheeky.</p><p>“I suppose.” Actually, getting to show off his super hot new boyfriend would be fun. “It won’t be dangerous for you, all those government people?”</p><p>“It’s not likely to be anyone who knows me.” If the day comes where they have to run, they will. They wouldn’t be alone out there.</p><p>Rodney shifts, reaching to cup John’s ass. John hasn’t decided what he’ll do now, but he’s still got some healing to do from how Koyla had worked him over. Rodney has been very supportive of their combined decision to take it slow for a while. Whatever dreams John has saved up, he’s now free to pursue them. “It’ll be good practice for when I win my Nobel prize.”</p><p>“Of course,” John says, kissing his chin. He’s not cleared for <em>strenuous </em>exercise yet, but the way he’s slowly grinding against Rodney is hardly strenuous. Lazy, that’s the word for it; it’s the word for how John kisses him, drawn-out drags of his lips whose purpose is to touch and feel, spinning like a leaf on calm water, circling a moment of pleasure.</p><p>Rodney gets a hand between them, undoing buttons and zips until he can hold them both. John pants into his neck, warm puffs in sync with rhythm of Rodney’s wrist twisting and sliding. His other hand curls across John’s shoulders, his mouth pressing a clumsy kiss into John’s temple. John trembles against him, whispering “Rodney, Rodney,” open mouthed and husky.</p><p>A groan against his jaw pushes him over the edge, his palm rough as he keeps going, John finishing before pleasure crosses the line into pain. A few tissues take care of the worst of the mess. John ends up curled up on top of him, not unlike Einstein does when Rodney’s trying to sleep. The flutter in his chest evens out with his heartbeat, satiated and renewed in repose.</p><p>Eyes closed and content, John picks up the previous topic of conversation. “If the party is boring, we’ll leave early and watch Star Trek instead.”</p><p>If John keeps talking like that, Rodney might just have to propose.</p>
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